A review by aimiller
Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Anne Jolie

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.5

I really really enjoyed this; Jolie is such a careful, attentive writer with a clear passion for Cleveland and the surrounding area and a rigorous understanding of how the world she moved through as a child was constructed. Her writings about femmehood I think are some of the most clearly articulated I've read in a long time, and a much-needed antidote to the muddying of the term by a firm grounding in her working class upbringing. I kind of wanted more--she talks about embodying this as she goes through academia, and I think this is a tension point that she doesn't pick at any more, or what that means and I would personally find that super interesting (and because we don't yet have much if any good writing on that straddling and it's becoming more and more relevant I think, but I understand the structure here and the Rust Belt part of it fades whens he moves away so it's not necessarily relevant to the confines of the book. 

Definitely recommend it though!