Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderfully paced, dramatic, and tense story. The experience of reading this is like running through a maze with beautiful monsters on your trail.

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Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

10 million stars. I'm recommending this to everyone. Despite the large number of books I've been reading about feminism, this one is still transformative. Has the slow trickle of oppression been why I've been just sloshing around in a vague depressed state for the last decade? I think so. It's like having someone snap their fingers in front of your face until you awaken to how powerful passionate (angry) groups of women can be, and how all this squashing of emotion has been maintaining a terrible status quo.

Here are some things I'm ENRAGED about:
1) That time Trump suggested “the second amendment people” murder Hillary. What an attack on democracy to suggest people murder your political opponent! What a monstrous-woman-abusing thing to say! What a monstrous pro-gun-for-murder thing to say. How he so lightly endangers the secret service too. RAGE.
2) Total inaction in the face of global warming. Goodbye, humanity. Sorry future grandkids, no planet for you.
3) School shootings. My son had to hide during a lockdown THIS WEEK. This is his third lockdown. He is in second grade. I AM SO ANGRY, I CRY ABOUT THIS.
4) Kids in detention camps. If this doesn't make you enraged, you might be suffering from mild-to-intense sociopathy.
5) The Supreme Court is at least 33% misogynistic men: Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch.
6) The number of Americans that are totally unaware of the oppressive history of our country, how this has built systemic injustice that is still completely relevant.
7) I am still so angry about Matt Lauer. Forget that he was so without skill or talent in the first place, what he did to America in the 2016 Election is unforgivable. Not if he feeds all the world's orphans. (Okay, maybe only if he feeds all the world's orphans.)
8) Every time men use the expression "witch hunt."
9) The very idea that "the war on Christmas" is real, but that institutional racism and sexism is not real or individually surmountable. Remember all those men that got harassed at work because they celebrate Christmas? Those kids that got sent to detention camps because they are Christian? Nope, me neither.


ROAR!!!

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Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is excellent. I try to read a lot of books about feminism and racism, and this book is so great because there is not one wasted paragraph- not once did I think oh, I've read all this before. Cooper has an excess of interesting and nuanced ideas. She is an excellent writer as well, so she is able to communicate her unique ideas in an especially clear and persuasive manner. This is clearly going to be one of those nonfiction books that I proselytize about by buying it for lots of unsuspecting friends and family.

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The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some parts of this were amazing. It was full of really cogent feminist arguments with lots of citations.

That said, the hyperbole/alarmist tone in some sections was a little difficult to swallow even if it turns out it’s not an exaggeration. Also, I felt like some of the belabored points made the book unnecessarily long, one of my nonfiction book pet peeves. In particular, the sections on anorexia and plastic surgery seemed a little dated because it was much discussed in the 1990s but both issues have faded into the background in the current decade.

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The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Power by Naomi Alderman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I liked about it: 1) the point Alderman is making with the story power, which is that power itself might be the problem not the gender of those with power, 2) how unique the story was.

What I didn't love: 1) how violent the story was, 2) how it got kind of confusing towards the end regarding the potential apocalyptic plans.

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Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is hard and heavy and ... joyless? I like the writing, it feels fresh and straightforward, different than other memoirs. But the lack of chronology made it difficult for me to understand who was who and who did what.

The afterword is a question and answer session and is especially interesting because Mailhot's voice is a little different, possibly its a transcript of her speaking instead of writing?

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The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has great characters you can love. Despite the main character being a teen and struggling with how she is viewed by the outside world, the book itself still manages to handle the very important and sadly all too frequent topic of police shootings with great maturity. This novel is a clear young adult winner.

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Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this because Emma Watson's (United Nations Women) feminist book club chose it for this month's selection. I love the book club, but I did not love this book. I could see how some women might find it valuable, but it just wasn't my jam.

It told some scary fairytales and then asserted that these were a feminist balm for your sexist wounds. But I don't actually think so. For example, "La Llorona" seems to be about not being evil just because you're wounded or sad.

Also, the author blatantly overused the word "moist." Just unnecessary.

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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Things seem pretty bad in the United States right now. Just last Wednesday a white American man shot two Indian men in a bar, yelling "Get out of my country." Women's rights, racial minority rights, GLBT rights are all on the chopping block, and when you add those people together, they're actually the majority of America. This novel isn't moving or frightening because it's a prediction of where the United States is headed so much as it reveals how too much power in the hands of a few degenerates into a situation that's awful for everyone. It's a continuum. Misplaced power is already hurting us. Letting the powerful grow more powerful will make the situation worse.

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Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou

Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have not read a biography or autobiography of Maya Angelou and so I was very interested this memoir. It focuses mostly but not exclusively on her mother and other close family relationships: her brother, father, grandmother, and son. It's interesting and a bit wild, as her mother sounds like a threatening character, and unrelatedly, some dangerous things happened to Angelou herself.

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Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book ties in really well Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo. I think having a familiarity with the case studies in developing countries is a really good background before reading this book. One of the points it tries to make is that the case studies clear up the difference between ideologically believing in something as a liberal or conservative or whatever, and actually TESTING the proposed solutions on the ground. That's one of the reasons this book emphasizes the success of local people or at least foreign people that are present locally in dealing with these issues as superior to just blinding sending money-- though money is also needed obviously.

There's a ton of research that the authors used on a wide range of issues to move their argument forward that change is achievable and necessary for both the volunteers and the victims. This is a carefully thought out book, and the authors do not limit themselves by what is typically considered "politically correct" or of a particular ideology, but rather limit themselves to what is backed by the research and studies.

I don't consider myself closed off to the general suffering in the world. I read the newspaper and pay attention to international news. While I was familiar with a lot of the issues covered in the book, I was surprised and horrified to see them linked so closely. I was especially saddened and horrified by the opening chapters on modern day sex slavery. I think the authors did their job really well which is that I feel motivated to make some positive change though I need to think about how to get more involved.

PS. I read a lot of the criticisms of this book before writing my review and I'm honestly puzzled. A lot of the criticisms appear to just be a mischaracterization of something that Kristoff and WuDunn said in the book. Some of the other criticisms boil down to a reader not agreeing with something or other the author stated, which is not typically a reason I would lower my rating of a book. I'm seeking to take in other perspectives when I read. I want to expand my own understanding of different views of problems and solutions. If I only wanted to know what I think about an issue I could talk to myself and my little group of like-minded friends, though the reality is that Kristoff and WuDunn and the many people they interviewed and the authors they read for this book have a lot more experience in the international development arena than negative commenters or me.

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Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This two part story is amazing. I preferred the first part, but both parts are great. It's a great opportunity to learn about Iran, fanatical religions and political parties both in general and specifically. But some of what I love the most is how Satrapi looks at both Iran and Austria's culture (or a more general Western one) through the eyes of a feminist.

It's sad that Iran remains an Islamic theocracy, under the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, since 1989 until now.

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Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This graphic nonfiction novel- my first graphic novel- is amazing. It was so entertaining to read that couldn't put it down until I was finished. It's incredibly moving, and I learned so much about Iran from the perspective of young Iranian girl from the Shah, to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, to the Iran-Iraq war. Part I of story covers her life from 1979-1984, from about when she was 9 to 14 years old.

I'm really annoyed at myself for not getting The Complete Persepolis because now I have to wait to check out Part II.

(Gate of all nations in the city of Persepolis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis#/media/File:Persepolis_24.11.2009_11-12-14.jpg)

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Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book mostly for fans of Sleater-Kinney. I wasn't familiar with Sleater Kinney before, but I just downloaded some of the albums Brownstein likes best to listen to them. She's a good writer, she's easy to love, and there's a lot of interesting discussion of the West Coast music scene. But as I said, I'd recommend this mostly to fans of Sleater-Kinney because there's not a lot in the narrative to appeal otherwise. I heard about this book in the Our Shared Shelf feminist book club, but I don't think it's a very feminist book beyond a brief conversation about how female musicians are treated differently in the press than male musicians.

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My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that I really want everyone to read. Gloria Steinem talks about her experiences with people she met during her travels from the time of the women's liberation movement in the 1960s to current day. She ties the history of the past to the realities of current day politics. Most importantly, she explains the tie between racism and sexism in the United States, and how abolition, suffrage, the civil rights movement, and women's liberation have been and continue to be linked.

You don't have to agree with everything that Steinem says in order to be greatly enriched by this book.

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How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was so great and so funny. Then it took kind of a dark turn and told the story of her abortion. I agree with her that these stories need to be told but I think they'd be more enlightening in the plural where different reasons, procedures, and reactions are explored. Obviously abortion is an important issue of feminism- of human rights really. However, in this book which is mostly a light-hearted introduction to feminism, this story might push away the very people she's speaking to, those that need to be reminded that feminism is a vital movement.

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The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Woah. This is a lot. I wouldn't know where to start reviewing it. Probably you should read it, but if you do please don't blame me for telling you to read it.

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