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A review by nicdoeswords
A Sentimental Education by Hannah McGregor
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
5.0
Thank you to Wilfrid Laurier University Press for sending me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
A Sentimental Education is a book about "creating a feminist ethics of care," and sets about the task with exceptional deftness and nuance. McGregor writes with both earnestness and well-sourced academic ease, marrying her internal and external worlds to craft a story (and she insists that story is crafted, always, with intentional and bias) of hope, criticism, and widening worldviews beyond the violent narrowness of white supremacy.
I was recommended to request an ARC of this book by a friend. I did not know anything really about McGregor before reading it, and I've never listened to either podcast she mentions in the book. I was blown away! The writing hits hard when it needs to—I have an obscene number of quotes listed—but pushes and presses at the reader to engage and act. I have both a new reading list from this book, and renewed vigor in the value of action over performing the "correct" politicized forms of entertainment. This book wants me to read differently, more actively and more determinedly, and it wants me to learn and then do something.
It is difficult to express the impact this had on me without devolving into universalist cliches. I am glad that I read it. I will be recommending it a lot. I look forward to continuing to find the ways, as the text reads toward the end, to embed care in my mundane everydays, and to always be interrogating my own definitions of sentimentality, of everyday, and above all of how we care for each other, and what that means.
A Sentimental Education is a book about "creating a feminist ethics of care," and sets about the task with exceptional deftness and nuance. McGregor writes with both earnestness and well-sourced academic ease, marrying her internal and external worlds to craft a story (and she insists that story is crafted, always, with intentional and bias) of hope, criticism, and widening worldviews beyond the violent narrowness of white supremacy.
I was recommended to request an ARC of this book by a friend. I did not know anything really about McGregor before reading it, and I've never listened to either podcast she mentions in the book. I was blown away! The writing hits hard when it needs to—I have an obscene number of quotes listed—but pushes and presses at the reader to engage and act. I have both a new reading list from this book, and renewed vigor in the value of action over performing the "correct" politicized forms of entertainment. This book wants me to read differently, more actively and more determinedly, and it wants me to learn and then do something.
It is difficult to express the impact this had on me without devolving into universalist cliches. I am glad that I read it. I will be recommending it a lot. I look forward to continuing to find the ways, as the text reads toward the end, to embed care in my mundane everydays, and to always be interrogating my own definitions of sentimentality, of everyday, and above all of how we care for each other, and what that means.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Eating disorder
Minor: Racism, Fatphobia, Drug use, Homophobia, and Sexism
This book examines white supremacy, patriarchy, and the violence of state systems. Descriptions of the content warnings listed under minor remains rooted in an opposition to these forces, as well as empathy and a desire for systems to change with an acknowledgement of the complicated nature of systemic change.