A review by flybyreader
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

3.0

I have complicated feelings about this book. First of all, it provides a perspective of feminism I’ve never even considered before and in that sense, I enjoyed it. Hurley discusses feminism from the geek point of view - the women, who work in male-dominated gaming and sci-fi writing industries and as in many fields, it’s a lonely place for women. She analyzes famous movies and books to present how subtly misogynistic they all are. Reading about my favorite movies with a kind of irrevocable conciousness is both enlightening and sad, and I really enjoyed that part. Later on, the author talks about her own experiences as a gay writer with a chronic illness, who also happened to be fat-shamed and dragged into depression, and how she picked herself up, dusted off and moved on. The personal memoir part weighs heavily in the second hald of the book and I felt confused at times as to what I was reading. Is this a feminist nonfiction, a personal memoir filled with hardships or “we can do this or that if we really want to” kind of peptalk. In that way, the book pushes itself into the boundaries of self-help, too. Do not get your hopes up for strong feminist reasoning and consider it a story of a woman, who has been through stuff.