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A review by kyatic
Rife: Twenty-One Stories from Britain's Youth by Nikesh Shukla, Sammy Jones
5.0
Thanks to Unbound and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Let me tell you, there is nothing that, as a 27 year old, makes you feel older than reading a book called Twenty-One Stories from Britain's Youth which then specifies that the nebulous Youth are ages 16-24. I will probably be drawing a pension soon.
But in all seriousness, this book was just great. It's a completely necessary middle finger to all the white, middle-aged male politicians who denigrate the so-called Youth for being unengaged with politics, misinformed and apathetic. This book goes completely against that ridiculous stereotype and shows that young does not mean uncaring.
As always in an anthology book like this, there are some essays which stand out more than others. The final essay in this collection is about how young people can learn from the elderly, and about how ageism affects both ends of the spectrum, and as someone who has taken on a carer role for elderly relatives in the past, this one in particular spoke to me. There are also essays on sexism, fatphobia, racism, the voting age, online harassment, mental health, and the pressures of university, amongst others. Many of these issues do not only affect young people, and it was simultaneously refreshing to see a new perspective on some of them and disheartening to realise that even young people are not protected from bigotry.
The essays on university life in particular were illuminating. As a 27 year old, I was part of the last cohort to pay £3k a year for tuition fees. My year group was the year who voted Nick Clegg into office and then experienced the betrayal of the tuition fee hike, but didn't have to pay up. It made me angry to see what students have to contend with today and the debt they experience because of it.
The voices in this collection are strong and important. The writing is fluent, persuasive and well-informed. I really couldn't find much fault with this collection; I'm sure there'll be the inevitable 'ooh, it's Leftist bias' nonsense from some people at some point, but the fact is that it's a representation of a microcosm of youth voices. It is indicative, not representative, of young people's viewpoints in Britain today, and it's about time that they were listened to. They? We? God, I'm old.
Let me tell you, there is nothing that, as a 27 year old, makes you feel older than reading a book called Twenty-One Stories from Britain's Youth which then specifies that the nebulous Youth are ages 16-24. I will probably be drawing a pension soon.
But in all seriousness, this book was just great. It's a completely necessary middle finger to all the white, middle-aged male politicians who denigrate the so-called Youth for being unengaged with politics, misinformed and apathetic. This book goes completely against that ridiculous stereotype and shows that young does not mean uncaring.
As always in an anthology book like this, there are some essays which stand out more than others. The final essay in this collection is about how young people can learn from the elderly, and about how ageism affects both ends of the spectrum, and as someone who has taken on a carer role for elderly relatives in the past, this one in particular spoke to me. There are also essays on sexism, fatphobia, racism, the voting age, online harassment, mental health, and the pressures of university, amongst others. Many of these issues do not only affect young people, and it was simultaneously refreshing to see a new perspective on some of them and disheartening to realise that even young people are not protected from bigotry.
The essays on university life in particular were illuminating. As a 27 year old, I was part of the last cohort to pay £3k a year for tuition fees. My year group was the year who voted Nick Clegg into office and then experienced the betrayal of the tuition fee hike, but didn't have to pay up. It made me angry to see what students have to contend with today and the debt they experience because of it.
The voices in this collection are strong and important. The writing is fluent, persuasive and well-informed. I really couldn't find much fault with this collection; I'm sure there'll be the inevitable 'ooh, it's Leftist bias' nonsense from some people at some point, but the fact is that it's a representation of a microcosm of youth voices. It is indicative, not representative, of young people's viewpoints in Britain today, and it's about time that they were listened to. They? We? God, I'm old.