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A review by bookph1le
Shrill by Lindy West
4.0
As a semi-regular Jezebel reader, Lindy West is a feminist author whose work I've read many times in the past, so I was interested in what this book might have to say. It's kind of a mixed bag, but I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way. It's more that, while I think her essays are well-done and thought-provoking, what really grabbed me were the later sections of the book. Some spoilers to follow.
The initial two thirds or so of the book consist of a loose collection of essays that reminded me quite a bit of Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist, in that West riffs on a variety of topics related to feminism. She tackles rape culture, misogyny in comedy, body acceptance, abortion, and other topics. She is unapologetic in her work, which is brutally, viciously funny at times. If you've read feminist work before, as I have, her take is interesting, but what she describes is, sadly, not anything new. Frankly it can be exhausting at times, because I can't help but wonder how many similarly well-done and articulate thought pieces need to happen before women's humanity (and the humanity of minorities, the disabled, fat people, LGBTQ people, etc.) is acknowledged. That West can write about this stuff on a regular basis and still retain her edge is something. I'm glad to know she refuses to back down.
Yet as personal as some of this stuff is--and I think her writing about body acceptance is very personal--I still felt sort of detached from it. This is through no fault of West's, but more my own weariness that these are conversations we have to keep having over and over ad nauseam.
Then the book executes what felt sort of like a 180 degree turn to me. Suddenly, it turns into a very personal memoir, with West writing about her breakup and her father's death. I was spellbound. There is such raw, tangible grief and anger and loss when she writes about her relationship problems and her father dying that I felt like the book was grabbing me and pulling me into its pages. These sections capture so many basic human feelings that I don't know if I could name them all, and they made for a very intense, visceral reading experience.
Also fascinating is her description of her encounter with an Internet troll who set up a nasty Twitter account using a mocking version of her recently deceased father's name. I had listened to the story on NPR's This American Life, and if you haven't heard it, I recommend it. This is some very real stuff, as West pokes into the reasons behind her troll's actions. What results is entirely unexpected, and not something I'd spoil in a review because it's an astonishingly humane story that West does an amazing job of telling, both in the book and on This American Life.
This is a book I'd recommend to anyone interested in feminism, especially those who have an irreverent sense of humor.
The initial two thirds or so of the book consist of a loose collection of essays that reminded me quite a bit of Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist, in that West riffs on a variety of topics related to feminism. She tackles rape culture, misogyny in comedy, body acceptance, abortion, and other topics. She is unapologetic in her work, which is brutally, viciously funny at times. If you've read feminist work before, as I have, her take is interesting, but what she describes is, sadly, not anything new. Frankly it can be exhausting at times, because I can't help but wonder how many similarly well-done and articulate thought pieces need to happen before women's humanity (and the humanity of minorities, the disabled, fat people, LGBTQ people, etc.) is acknowledged. That West can write about this stuff on a regular basis and still retain her edge is something. I'm glad to know she refuses to back down.
Yet as personal as some of this stuff is--and I think her writing about body acceptance is very personal--I still felt sort of detached from it. This is through no fault of West's, but more my own weariness that these are conversations we have to keep having over and over ad nauseam.
Then the book executes what felt sort of like a 180 degree turn to me. Suddenly, it turns into a very personal memoir, with West writing about her breakup and her father's death. I was spellbound. There is such raw, tangible grief and anger and loss when she writes about her relationship problems and her father dying that I felt like the book was grabbing me and pulling me into its pages. These sections capture so many basic human feelings that I don't know if I could name them all, and they made for a very intense, visceral reading experience.
Also fascinating is her description of her encounter with an Internet troll who set up a nasty Twitter account using a mocking version of her recently deceased father's name. I had listened to the story on NPR's This American Life, and if you haven't heard it, I recommend it. This is some very real stuff, as West pokes into the reasons behind her troll's actions. What results is entirely unexpected, and not something I'd spoil in a review because it's an astonishingly humane story that West does an amazing job of telling, both in the book and on This American Life.
This is a book I'd recommend to anyone interested in feminism, especially those who have an irreverent sense of humor.