A review by coldprintcoffee
Tomboyland: Essays by Melissa Faliveno

5.0

I wanted to write a longer review for this, but I do think 49 notes and highlights will speak for itself. This collection of essays explores all the questions to which in the end we don't receive clarity and easy answers. An exploration of identity and being and how we carry pieces of those with us as we move about the world; how we differ in our concept of ourselves in comparison and contrast to how others perceive us; vivid recounting of formidable and poignant events that made us, us - it hits all these things, and hard. Many of the highlights I chose had to do with Midwestern identity, stoic and not so emotionally vulnerable families, Catholicism, tornado chasing and admiration of chaotic women, the contradictions that feel inherent in our choices: her deliberation of the function and implications of owning and using a gun feel spot-on to me. Rage that women feel and how little it's expressed. Overall, stupendous read.