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125 reviews for:
Our Stories, Our Voices: 21 YA Authors Get Real about Injustice, Empowerment, and Growing Up Female in America
Amy Reed, Julie Murphy
4.13 AVERAGE
125 reviews for:
Our Stories, Our Voices: 21 YA Authors Get Real about Injustice, Empowerment, and Growing Up Female in America
Amy Reed, Julie Murphy
4.13 AVERAGE
I loved this collection of personal essays. Each author talks about their experience with sexual abuse, racism, coming out as LGBTQIA+, bullying, misogyny, mental health, feminism and other topics. The writers are honest and some of the stories made me cry, because I could relate to them. What all the stories have in common is that each of the writers discuss their feelings about our current Cheeto in chief, especially on Election Day 2016. This is an empowering read!
More YA and less detailed than I thought it would be. I love these authors, though, and their feelings, stories, and lives I still find inspiring. Strong independent women getting together to write about the collective female experience in the USA is always something I will support!
Really loved this!! So many amazing stories that everyone should read!!
"Ours are the marginalized voices they refuse to listen to. This book, this act of resistance, says our stories matter. Our lives matter. Our voices will not be silenced."This anthology review is going to be a little different than my other ones because it’s nonfiction stories, and it feel weird reviewing and rating each story individually when it’s someone’s personal experiences. I’ve been looking forward to this anthology since I read The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed last year and I discovered that she was editing an anthology about race, religion, activism, feminism, and the female experience.
I found many of the stories to be captivating and raw. Some of my favorites in the collection was “My American Dream” by Sandhya Menon celebrating everything that makes you who you are. “Finding My Feminism” by Amy Reed who shared a moving condemnation of rape culture and what being an activist means to her. “Tiny Battles” by Maureen Goo detailed the “tiny battles” that makes up your life’s journey and the powerful motivator anger can be. “Myth Making: In the Wake of Hardship” by Somaiya Daud discussed the complexities of intersecting identities. These stories all felt incredibly personal, while also universal - which I think is the highest praise I can give this anthology.
Overall, I really did enjoy this anthology. Now it can start to make you emotional, I drifted between sadness and anger a lot, but it does pull you in. And this was really one of my first experiences with nonfiction, but I was invested because it was stories from authors I love or subject matter that I value. Our Stories, Our Voices is a powerhouse collection of truths that need to be shared from an incredibly diverse range of YA authors that allows their voices to shine in an uncertain time.
I received a copy of the book from Simon Pulse via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
I love getting to know more about people and their stories. This book is a powerful collection of stories that I highly recommend you read!
Empowering, raw, honest. Such strong stories from strong women.
I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Review originally posted on my blog, Turning Pages.
Feminist books are so for me. They’re important, always relevant, and educational. Equality is so important. I find that reading feminist books, particularly non-fiction, makes you grow as a person. It’s that kind of fuel that can change a person, and therefore change the world.
Sometimes I struggle with anthologies, because often I only enjoy maybe half of the stories and force myself to finish the rest. There were very, very few stories I didn’t enjoy in this collection which is a pretty big deal. I didn’t really enjoy Ellen Hopkin’s story, because it didn’t feel as impactful as the others. I also took issue with Ilene (I.W.) Gregorio’s story, because she uses the phrase “strong women” as though being bold, daring, and very physically strong is better. I find that phrase to be so harmful. I use to use it myself, until I realized that it’s problematic. There are many ways to be strong, and I think that phrase ignores that fact. It seemed like this story talked about the best way to be a girl, which is judgemental rather than recognizes you can be whatever you want to be.
The stories that I loved shed light on what it is to be a person of colour, LGBTQIA, and a woman. It shed light on rape culture and victims, on the way women are objectified, on racism, hate, misogyny. It lifted women up, expressed hopes and fears. It urges us to be vocal and create change. To band together. It talks about what the presidential election meant from various perspectives. It talked about how some feminists believe you have to reject traditionally ‘feminine’ things like makeup and fashion. All of these are fascinating and important topics. I was hooked to every page of these stories.
Some of my fave stories are “My Immigrant American Dream” by Sandhya Menon, “Finding My Feminism” by Amy Reed, “Unexpected Pursuits: Embracing My Indigeneity & Creativity” by Christine Day, and “Trumps and Trunchbulls” by Alexandra Duncan (though I loved many more than just these).
It was interesting to see the different perspectives, based on personal experiences and culture.
Our Stories, Our Voices is a must-read. It’s full of angering and empowering and educational stories by women from all walks of life. I truly value their voices, and I think everyone needs to read this book.
Review originally posted on my blog, Turning Pages.
Feminist books are so for me. They’re important, always relevant, and educational. Equality is so important. I find that reading feminist books, particularly non-fiction, makes you grow as a person. It’s that kind of fuel that can change a person, and therefore change the world.
Sometimes I struggle with anthologies, because often I only enjoy maybe half of the stories and force myself to finish the rest. There were very, very few stories I didn’t enjoy in this collection which is a pretty big deal. I didn’t really enjoy Ellen Hopkin’s story, because it didn’t feel as impactful as the others. I also took issue with Ilene (I.W.) Gregorio’s story, because she uses the phrase “strong women” as though being bold, daring, and very physically strong is better. I find that phrase to be so harmful. I use to use it myself, until I realized that it’s problematic. There are many ways to be strong, and I think that phrase ignores that fact. It seemed like this story talked about the best way to be a girl, which is judgemental rather than recognizes you can be whatever you want to be.
The stories that I loved shed light on what it is to be a person of colour, LGBTQIA, and a woman. It shed light on rape culture and victims, on the way women are objectified, on racism, hate, misogyny. It lifted women up, expressed hopes and fears. It urges us to be vocal and create change. To band together. It talks about what the presidential election meant from various perspectives. It talked about how some feminists believe you have to reject traditionally ‘feminine’ things like makeup and fashion. All of these are fascinating and important topics. I was hooked to every page of these stories.
Some of my fave stories are “My Immigrant American Dream” by Sandhya Menon, “Finding My Feminism” by Amy Reed, “Unexpected Pursuits: Embracing My Indigeneity & Creativity” by Christine Day, and “Trumps and Trunchbulls” by Alexandra Duncan (though I loved many more than just these).
It was interesting to see the different perspectives, based on personal experiences and culture.
Our Stories, Our Voices is a must-read. It’s full of angering and empowering and educational stories by women from all walks of life. I truly value their voices, and I think everyone needs to read this book.
A great collection of voices from varied backgrounds. I could see some high school teachers using some of the essays, or portions, as texts within an identity unit. Audience: High school and up.