Ratings92
Average rating3.9
“Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there.” — Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? A New York Times Bestseller Best Book of the Year: NPR • Boston Globe • Newsweek • Time Out New York • Oprah.com • Miami Herald • Book Riot • Buzz Feed • Globe and Mail (Toronto) • The Root • Shelf Awareness A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched cultural observers of her generation In these funny and insightful essays, Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics.
Reviews with the most likes.
I agreed with parts and disagreed with others. But it was important to listen to it. I'm glad I heard a voice different than mine.
I've always enjoyed Roxane Gay's writing, but this was the first time I'd read the essay collection that was a big deal a few years ago. I absolutely loved this book, she is so funny and smart and insightful.
I've liked her essays before, so was interested in longer form, but many are surface tv/movie reviews. Did appreciate the essays when she dug deeper into real problems like rape culture and intersectional inequalities. Those gave me something to chew on, but those were only about 30% of the essays.
My last finished book of 2023.
I think I've read too many books with people who talk about still liking content that they know is kinda sorta problematic but at the time where this book came out it was something that we needed to take a minute to think about. I remember the peak era of call out feminism and there's definitely a few things I would have liked to have seen enter the discourse back then.
There's a segment about trigger warnings which I found somewhat tedious and that's where my reading notes ended.
Ultimately it wasn't an unpleasant read (Gay has an engaging writing style and there's a great flow to the book) and there were definitely interesting moments and quotable lines but it was so largely about pop culture and aged that it ended up being a mostly just okay read. I agree with Gay that maxi dresses are the best though.
3.25-5/5 rounded down.