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trywii's reviews
384 reviews
The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
2.0
While intrigued by the title (as well as its larger quote from the context of feminism pushing back), this book was lackluster.
I was hoping for a more focused series of essays, but it takes a nosedive as soon as it turned right into a chapter dedicated to venting about how bad Adam Sandler movies are.
The skeleton of the author’s politics are something I’m actually more aligned with, but the book fails to put any substance on it. The humor is also grating. I’d imagine for someone who still thinks LOL Cats humor and older internet memes are funny would enjoy the joking tone in this book, however I personally found it grating and annoying.
The mentions of politics offer nothing new or any profound perspective. I wouldn’t even offer this as a ‘Baby’s First Feminist Thought’ kind of book as it does poorly on exploring that as well. It also ages painfully bad, as reading the “Well democrats wouldn’t take away Roe v Wade or LGBT rights!” bits while watching our current Dem president snooze while exactly that happens…It’s also painfully untrue for minorities who’ve been screwed collectively buy Dems before.
It’s not entirely bad…but it’s boring, and often too black and white. If you’re looking for feminist-type essays, I’d recommend Roxane Gay’s ‘Bad Feminist’, but if you’re looking more towards internet culture vs feminism, I recommend Laura Bates’ ‘Men Who Hate Women’
I was hoping for a more focused series of essays, but it takes a nosedive as soon as it turned right into a chapter dedicated to venting about how bad Adam Sandler movies are.
The skeleton of the author’s politics are something I’m actually more aligned with, but the book fails to put any substance on it. The humor is also grating. I’d imagine for someone who still thinks LOL Cats humor and older internet memes are funny would enjoy the joking tone in this book, however I personally found it grating and annoying.
The mentions of politics offer nothing new or any profound perspective. I wouldn’t even offer this as a ‘Baby’s First Feminist Thought’ kind of book as it does poorly on exploring that as well. It also ages painfully bad, as reading the “Well democrats wouldn’t take away Roe v Wade or LGBT rights!” bits while watching our current Dem president snooze while exactly that happens…It’s also painfully untrue for minorities who’ve been screwed collectively buy Dems before.
It’s not entirely bad…but it’s boring, and often too black and white. If you’re looking for feminist-type essays, I’d recommend Roxane Gay’s ‘Bad Feminist’, but if you’re looking more towards internet culture vs feminism, I recommend Laura Bates’ ‘Men Who Hate Women’
Flight by Sherman Alexie
2.0
While I do enjoy the narrative style of this book as well as the premise, the actual execution feels more like a ‘Very Special Episode’ or a PSA of sorts. I thought the narrative would subvert what I imagined the ending would be, but it doesn’t. At all.
The conflicts the protagonist ‘Zits’ get resolved pretty much entirely by the end…even his skin problems! The time travel aspect is interesting and offers the protagonist a new sense of empathy, but it’s unclear how that resolves the massive amount of trauma he’s experienced in his own life, as well as his social circumstances.
It would make sense that the time travel aspect would show Zits his roots, and maybe show him how people are complicated and empathy is powerful, but a lot of Zits’ problems can’t be solved or overcome with just empathy- his identity is quite literally erased legally, and his abuse, while acknowledged, is something he never mentions out loud to anyone else. We as the reader see all his pain and all its roots, but we never see how it’s untangled with the help of people who care about him.
While it’s nice that Zits gets a happy ending, it still feels like the story is unresolved. We don’t see Zits grow or share his struggles with anyone else. He’s dropped off right where the time travel shenanigans took him, and he runs with his tail between his legs to the police. He’s later adopted by a loving white family, and they all make one big happy family, and Zits gets acne cream! Okay…
I really wish the direction of this book focused on Zits’ sense of self and his relation to others and society. The strengths of this book would’ve been made even better if the conclusion was both ‘happy’ but also made it so it wasn’t all perfect by the end. That maybe Zits will still struggle against foster care, maybe people still treat him like dirt, maybe things still suck- but at least by then he has a stronger sense of self and a new drive to end the cycle of abuse with a new sense of confidence.
Theres also some…weirdly racist lines that are widely out of place. I don’t mean in the context of the story either, I mean there’s some lines on here that had me scratching my head. I understand the discussion of Native Americans would also need to include the discrimination and stereotyping faced in America, but man a lot gets dragged out. Not just Native Americans, either. Black people are a part of the protagonists violent fantasies (we never find out why, nor does it make any sense considering Zits’ upbringing). Muslims get a thrashing as well for some reason. Very bizarre.
Despite the flaws, it was short and I was interested in the less problematic portions. If you do decide to read this, I recommend the audiobook version.
The conflicts the protagonist ‘Zits’ get resolved pretty much entirely by the end…even his skin problems! The time travel aspect is interesting and offers the protagonist a new sense of empathy, but it’s unclear how that resolves the massive amount of trauma he’s experienced in his own life, as well as his social circumstances.
It would make sense that the time travel aspect would show Zits his roots, and maybe show him how people are complicated and empathy is powerful, but a lot of Zits’ problems can’t be solved or overcome with just empathy- his identity is quite literally erased legally, and his abuse, while acknowledged, is something he never mentions out loud to anyone else. We as the reader see all his pain and all its roots, but we never see how it’s untangled with the help of people who care about him.
While it’s nice that Zits gets a happy ending, it still feels like the story is unresolved. We don’t see Zits grow or share his struggles with anyone else. He’s dropped off right where the time travel shenanigans took him, and he runs with his tail between his legs to the police. He’s later adopted by a loving white family, and they all make one big happy family, and Zits gets acne cream! Okay…
I really wish the direction of this book focused on Zits’ sense of self and his relation to others and society. The strengths of this book would’ve been made even better if the conclusion was both ‘happy’ but also made it so it wasn’t all perfect by the end. That maybe Zits will still struggle against foster care, maybe people still treat him like dirt, maybe things still suck- but at least by then he has a stronger sense of self and a new drive to end the cycle of abuse with a new sense of confidence.
Theres also some…weirdly racist lines that are widely out of place. I don’t mean in the context of the story either, I mean there’s some lines on here that had me scratching my head. I understand the discussion of Native Americans would also need to include the discrimination and stereotyping faced in America, but man a lot gets dragged out. Not just Native Americans, either. Black people are a part of the protagonists violent fantasies (we never find out why, nor does it make any sense considering Zits’ upbringing). Muslims get a thrashing as well for some reason. Very bizarre.
Despite the flaws, it was short and I was interested in the less problematic portions. If you do decide to read this, I recommend the audiobook version.
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce
1.0
Ughhhhhhhh
DNF - After the author spends nearly an entire chapter trying to explain the plot of The Matrix, followed by a chapter explaining how she would argue with people online, I had to drop the book. It’s grueling, and while I gave Irreversible Damage the same star rating, at the very least that book didn’t feel like trying to stay awake during a tedious lecture. For a book with TRANS on the cover, there’s a shocking (not) lack of trans history outside of what seems to be in every trans-opposed book these days. Were Blanchard and Money the only two guys in trans history until the internet came out?
“The issue does not touch me closely. I’m not trans. I don’t have a trans-identified child. I’m not a detransitioner, or an athlete forced to compete against transwomen, or a lesbian-“
Yeah, I can tell by the clinical distance and slight contempt when you start talking about trans women that this topic hardly touches you at all.
Skiiiiip.
DNF - After the author spends nearly an entire chapter trying to explain the plot of The Matrix, followed by a chapter explaining how she would argue with people online, I had to drop the book. It’s grueling, and while I gave Irreversible Damage the same star rating, at the very least that book didn’t feel like trying to stay awake during a tedious lecture. For a book with TRANS on the cover, there’s a shocking (not) lack of trans history outside of what seems to be in every trans-opposed book these days. Were Blanchard and Money the only two guys in trans history until the internet came out?
“The issue does not touch me closely. I’m not trans. I don’t have a trans-identified child. I’m not a detransitioner, or an athlete forced to compete against transwomen, or a lesbian-“
Yeah, I can tell by the clinical distance and slight contempt when you start talking about trans women that this topic hardly touches you at all.
Skiiiiip.
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier
1.0
Great for a headache
Abigail’s book offers itself as a neutral, not anti-trans call for attention towards criticism of medicalization for trans youth. It’s really anything but. With its tone and its sparse features of trans voices, what would’ve been simply a criticism of the inconsistency of trans medicalization turns into something bordering what many anti-gay literature was decades ago, only now applying it to trans folks.
After wading through several pages of reviews left by prominent right-wing, conservative speakers, followed by an eyebrow-raising introduction from the author warning the reader of its alluring “dangerous” contents, what is left in front of you is an onslaught of emotionally charged language, contradictory stances, and eye rolling “jokes” used to urge the reader into a specific frame of mind. Not to mention a severe lack of voices of those whose experiences are either ignored or hardly mentioned when it comes to medicalization for transgender people.
Out of all points made in the book, what made this make me drop the rating to 1 star is the author’s stances shifting at the drop of the hat at the nearest opportunity to dismiss a trans person’s experience or uphold anything that contrasts to their lives.
She says she’s down with “watchful waiting”: an examination of a trans person’s life that requires them to “live as the opposite sex” for two years before medical transitioning…but raises alarm bells in disgust when an “obvious male” is working at a women’s clothing store.
She says she respects adults who’ve gone through transitioning and respects their identities…except when apparently it’s too confusing or hard for Abigail to understand them, to which she refers to grown trans men as “girls” or “women”, no matter how much medicalization they’ve undergone or however long it’s been since the start of transitioning.
She says trans people are real and deserve empathy…except when talking about trans youth, in which it’s a “contagion” that one can “catch”, and even instructs parents to cut their children away from peers who may “infect” them, going so far as to suggest *physically moving homes away from their peers*.
She says she means no harm, that this book is entirely just criticism, not hate…but she makes no hesitation to cite conservative or right-wing sources, or to consistently refer to transness as a “contagion”, an “epidemic”, a “craze”, despite even she herself recognizing that while all other crazes come and go, transness has a visible history that hasn’t wavered (she however fails to mention any prevalence of trans identities and communities across the globe, saying this is obviously just a First World Problem.)
I came into this book knowing that while I may not like or agree with it, I would at least come out understanding ‘the other side’ a little better. Had it been any other author using a better voice throughout, maybe. But Abigail has a bitter undertone that sours the whole book, everything feels dripping in contempt and an almost opportunistic glee to refer to many ‘real’ trans people featured in this book in ways that many would consider humiliating or demoralizing. Eugh…
Bad book, but my favorite part is one of the therapists suggesting that trans teens never EVER self-pleasure( I mean, they’re teens, c’mon now…*Never?*). Had a good laugh, I’ll give you that.
Abigail’s book offers itself as a neutral, not anti-trans call for attention towards criticism of medicalization for trans youth. It’s really anything but. With its tone and its sparse features of trans voices, what would’ve been simply a criticism of the inconsistency of trans medicalization turns into something bordering what many anti-gay literature was decades ago, only now applying it to trans folks.
After wading through several pages of reviews left by prominent right-wing, conservative speakers, followed by an eyebrow-raising introduction from the author warning the reader of its alluring “dangerous” contents, what is left in front of you is an onslaught of emotionally charged language, contradictory stances, and eye rolling “jokes” used to urge the reader into a specific frame of mind. Not to mention a severe lack of voices of those whose experiences are either ignored or hardly mentioned when it comes to medicalization for transgender people.
Out of all points made in the book, what made this make me drop the rating to 1 star is the author’s stances shifting at the drop of the hat at the nearest opportunity to dismiss a trans person’s experience or uphold anything that contrasts to their lives.
She says she’s down with “watchful waiting”: an examination of a trans person’s life that requires them to “live as the opposite sex” for two years before medical transitioning…but raises alarm bells in disgust when an “obvious male” is working at a women’s clothing store.
She says she respects adults who’ve gone through transitioning and respects their identities…except when apparently it’s too confusing or hard for Abigail to understand them, to which she refers to grown trans men as “girls” or “women”, no matter how much medicalization they’ve undergone or however long it’s been since the start of transitioning.
She says trans people are real and deserve empathy…except when talking about trans youth, in which it’s a “contagion” that one can “catch”, and even instructs parents to cut their children away from peers who may “infect” them, going so far as to suggest *physically moving homes away from their peers*.
She says she means no harm, that this book is entirely just criticism, not hate…but she makes no hesitation to cite conservative or right-wing sources, or to consistently refer to transness as a “contagion”, an “epidemic”, a “craze”, despite even she herself recognizing that while all other crazes come and go, transness has a visible history that hasn’t wavered (she however fails to mention any prevalence of trans identities and communities across the globe, saying this is obviously just a First World Problem.)
I came into this book knowing that while I may not like or agree with it, I would at least come out understanding ‘the other side’ a little better. Had it been any other author using a better voice throughout, maybe. But Abigail has a bitter undertone that sours the whole book, everything feels dripping in contempt and an almost opportunistic glee to refer to many ‘real’ trans people featured in this book in ways that many would consider humiliating or demoralizing. Eugh…
Bad book, but my favorite part is one of the therapists suggesting that trans teens never EVER self-pleasure( I mean, they’re teens, c’mon now…*Never?*). Had a good laugh, I’ll give you that.
Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran
5.0
Easily one of the best memoirs I’ve read to date. Incredibly introspective and full of heart, this book is has a lot of love weaved into its core despite it all.