A review by olinast
The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

4.0

"There is no good answer to how to be a woman. The art may, instead, lie in how we refuse the question."

My only issue with this book was that some of the pieces included were maybe too different tonally. A couple of them in the beginning/middle felt really academic/scholarly and were harder to get through, then towards the end some of the pieces were really short and easy. That being said, Rebecca Solnit has no trouble occupying both spaces. She can write like an academic and on another occasion be super sarcastic. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on rape jokes in which she explored how culturally we have shifted the focus onto jokes about rape culture instead (even though, of course, some people are stupid and still miss the mark). When she wants to be funny, she is FUNNY (comment prompted by the piece on 80 books no woman should read).