A review by megadallion
Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame by Erin Williams

1.0

This was a hot mess. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting. This is a memoir of a woman who has been struggling with alcoholism for decades and, as she goes through the tedious motions of getting ready and commuting to and from work, revisits the memories of all the horrible men she’s ever experienced. Pretty much all of these men make her feel shitty about herself and a handful of them also force themselves on her. She fantasizes about a few of the men, all while she has a husband and baby waiting for her at home. She never talks about her husband, only how awful men are. One of the things that bothered me the most about this is that she says women are either desirable or invisible and every woman wants to be desirable. Excuse me, but no thank you, ew. She also has some questionable things to say about sexual assault and rape and I just didn’t understand what she was trying to say: “Defining sexual abuse as rape and rape as lack of consent hurts women. It belies many of our sexual experiences; the ugly, confusing ones that we don’t think we liked, but couldn’t quite understand.” Wtf? I just overall felt gross and angry while reading this. She said a few relatable things about being scared and constantly on alert when traveling alone and having a man suddenly come towards you, and how bizarre the marketing of women’s bodies is in advertisements, but that was about it. I wouldn’t recommend it.