Reviews - All In: The Autobiography ofBillie Jean King

323 reviews for:

All In: The Autobiography ofBillie Jean King

I want to give this 5 stars, but right now that's hard for me to do when incrementalism has shown itself to not have been doing enough to combat the escalation of genocide.

it's a great book, it emphasizes how relationships & organizing are more important than physiology (if physiology becomes a major part then it's because of the filtering processes). She argues very effectively for transgender inclusion, as well as describing how the sex divisions had more to do with patriarchs not inviting women & girls to games, as well as seeking to sabatoge playing.

This book is good at giving a profile of the various feminists of BJK's generation, their hopes & dreams, what accomplishments they took pride in, what sort of organizing skills they had.

This next paragraph is me trying to reconcile the heartbreak of the legalist road of USA's feminism getting overturned this week, and therefore how much of the activism got blown up. Like I & my ppl had been warning about it for decades, but still.

So this book explained a lot, and frankly I felt a lot of a heartbroken nostalgia that I had in the 1990s like I thought we were going to be having gender desegregation & such, but instead I got thwarted... So like for example, she's deeply religious, somewhat pacifist, she didn't like the USSR. Meanwhile, she said that the amount of activism in the Bay Area circa 1960s, fit descriptions of historical materialism... Like I felt going Ms. Priestly mode & saying the revolutions you relied on were made possible by the same country you bad mouth for lack of food & lack of church services. Like the WW3 analysis thinking that USA was the side that wouldn't gut the same rights her generation fought for... let's just say her generation overall didn't get that analysis. Or, the same USA from 1973 is the same USA that killed off USSR in WW3 in 1991 with that "end of history" analysis. I mean she's open about how she felt the need to make the sides happy, which fair enough about that communication style. But it's heartbreaking because battle of the sexes circa 1973, that crawlback has been strong

So until her retirement in the 1980s the book overall has a chronological order. In the last 100 minutes of the 18 hour audiobook it comes less orderly, which I don't know how to feel about that, but to be fair she did have less agency in that era, so whatever.

Point being, the fact that she talked about the various organizing she did, while it's not an instruction manual, I think it gives a good enough theory/history for us to consider when figuring out our own activism & organizing.

I wrote notes as I listened, so y'all might like those. My note loading thing broke at the 88% mark, but still.

mlafaive's review against another edition

3.0

informative slow-paced

I have a huge amount of respect and regard for BJK and her personal and professional accomplishments. Unfortunately, the autobiography was just too long with unnecessary details and personalities. I tried the audiobook, but the author reads it herself and it was not very engaging. I did pick up the hardback and managed to get all the way through, but it was a bit of a disappointment.

kimfullofbright's review against another edition

3.5

inspiring medium-paced

jilliebeanreads's review against another edition

5.0

Wow. Wow. Wow.
You *must* listen to Billie Jean King narrate her autobiography. It's amazing and I learned so much about all of the different ways she is a trailblazer.

She is a major voice behind equal pay (esp for women in sports). She put tennis on the map. She champions feminist issues, LGBTQ+ rights, civil rights...and more!