The Witches Are Coming

I love Lindy West's voice as a writer - this was a great collection of (mostly) light, fun essays, easy to dip into when you have a few minutes. I enjoyed the pop culture focused ones in particular, especially the South Park and Adam Sandler essays. I liked the more memoir-ish focus of [b:Shrill 29340182 Shrill Notes from a Loud Woman Lindy West https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1460015959l/29340182.SY75.jpg 46238704] a little bit better, because this could sometimes feel a little disjointed or repetitive, but that's not unusual for an essay collection.

I read this because I've seen a quote making the rounds online, and it was funny, and it was sourced to this book. So, why not try the book? And now I still think this author writes well, and there's humor, and at the same time she's saying a whole lot of things that would be painful to confront, I guess, if I hadn't been growing up in this country and marinating in all of the awful for 29 years and have long since confronted these things.

I haven't watched the tv show Shrill but I remember reading a little of the book, but I never finished it because it was a time when I used to abandon books midway a lot. But I also remember that I found it very interesting and powerful. So when I saw this book on my Libro.fm list for November, I knew I had to pick it up immediately and I'm so glad I didn't put it off.

As I always like to do, I listened and read this book simultaneously and while it's a very wonderful book to read, the author's narration makes it excellent. She is fiery and passionate and brings out all the emotions that she may have felt while writing the book into her narrative voice, and it makes for a very immersive listening experience. Right alongside her, I felt angry and disappointed, I laughed out and I felt motivated. Any book that evokes such strong feelings in us deserves a read.

This book is also extremely quotable. I just kept highlighting paragraphs upon paragraphs in my kindle, and I think I could have done that to the whole book. The book is not a single coherent story, it's more like a collection of essays with each chapter dealing with a different topic that the author deeply resonates with. She is a pro-choice, body positive, feminist writer and is completely unapologetic about her opinions and I admire her so much for it. I particularly loved reading her thoughts on the #MeToo movement, abortion rights, youth activism and women's anger.

But what makes this book special is her no holds barred style of writing. That would probably be considered a good attitude for a man but not a woman, and the author talks extensively about all the ways in which this hypocrisy persists - where men are assumed to be the leaders and risk takers and capable, whereas women have to work doubly hard to prove themselves to be on par while also fighting off impossible expectations of niceness and likability. And whatever topic she is talking about, it's inevitable that the discussion turns to the current president and she is fearless in her criticism of his policies, as well as the overall destructive platform of the Republicans and their right wing cohorts. And she is also highly critical of the “center” or “apolitical” people as if choosing not to be political in the current climate is in itself not a highly privileged political stance.

I could probably write a lot more in my review, but I want to end it right here and ask you to pick this up. Read it, listen to it, it's your choice but do consume it. It may not talk about things we don't already know, but sometimes it's good to get a reminder - especially from someone who hits the nail on the head so articulately and without holding herself back. And as a fat woman, I admire the author even more for sticking up for her principles in the face of unimaginable trolling and threats. It's an extremely well written and narrated book and I highly recommend it.

3.5 Her comedy stylings are not for me. There's also a noticeable void of anti-pseudoscience condemnation in the Goop chapter. But, even when she introduces her searing dissections of global political misdirection via the prism of sappingly irrelevant subcelebrities, Lindy West is still a cultural force.

The author's writing style and organization of thoughts is not my cup of tea.

Each chapter seems to be like an article in newspaper or something similar. Each took me awhile to grasp what message the author might be trying to convey, and I wouldn't say I'd guessed correctly. And most times I wasn't sure what it had to do with either the prior chapters or the book title.

Moving on to books on social justice for women that I may be a better fit for.

I'm a longtime fan of Lindy West and I love an essay collection, so it's no surprise that reading this had me like:



Some of these were adapted from works posted elsewhere, but like still, I'm always happy to read her investigation of the GOOP empire. I really appreciate West's blend of humor, empathy, and outrage.

Her writing's funny and smart and just very quotable...but most of it was preaching to the choir. I agree with her politics (as I am sure every reader did) but most could have used more nuanced takes and only a a few like “likability” being a con and loving student activism even if it is “occasionally overzealous and underbaked just like any other youthful pursuit” genuinely made me think. Overall this felt less like a book and more like a bunch of great essays connected only by an embarrassingly poor stab at a “witchy” theme.