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justasking27's review against another edition
2.5
Moderate: Alcoholism, Self harm, and Sexual assault
jenniferbbookdragon's review
4.25
Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Sexual harassment, and Dysphoria
Minor: Drug use, Sexual content, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
BDSMciararenaud's review
5.0
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Biphobia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Grief, Alcohol, and Dysphoria
Moderate: Sexism
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, and Classism
abbie_'s review
4.25
- the discussion around bisexuality, biphobia, and bi erasure. Faliveno is bi and in a relationship with a man, and she talks about how she (and many of her other queer friends) often feels like she no longer belongs in the queer community, but also doesn’t belong among the cis-hets because of her gender ‘presentation’
- The discussion around gender presentation. The author does disclose her preference for she/her pronouns, but also identifies as genderqueer. Loved her discussion on how the world reacts to her because we’re all so obsessed with putting things (and people) into clearly delineated boxes
- Tomboy history - did you know the word tomboy has racist and heteronormative roots? I didn’t but I’m not surprised. Also people used to encourage girls to be tomboys so that they’d run around more and get healthy and fit and strong so they’d be more suited for child bearing later on?? Then when they hit 14 or 15 it was time to be a proper lady again
- Made me think about tornadoes, those things are scary and America just experiences them all the time?? Wild
- Everything she shares about found family and community, and the privilege she knows she has that she’s both close to her biological family and has such a great queer community surrounding her
- All the discussion around children and deciding to be child-free. I don’t think I’ve seen someone take such a complex deep dive into their feelings around this, especially as she admits to feeling some type of grief around not having children, but that grief doesn’t mean she wants to change her mind or regret her decision. A lot of things are presented as black and white these days, so it was nice to see someone admit to holding a lot of conflicting feelings at once
- not much tbh! The last essay wasn’t as strong as the others so I feel like that could have been placed elsewhere in the collection
Graphic: Biphobia, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
letmetakea_shelfie_'s review
4.0
Graphic: Self harm and Sexual content
readerette's review against another edition
4.0
I found this an intriguing rumination on identity and how it develops, though as a Midwesterner, I don't agree with most of the generalizations the author makes about Midwesterners. I do believe those generalizations are how people outside the Midwest often think of us, but I don't believe they're factually true or that most Midwesterners consider them true.
Moderate: Alcoholism, Biphobia, Homophobia, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Grief, and Alcohol
Minor: Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Colonisation, and Dysphoria
br00k3a133n's review against another edition
2.25
There was so much in this that was enjoying but as it went on ended up liking my time with it less and less.
Maybe if it had been half to a third shorter it might have not overstayed it's welcome (which know is strange to say with personal essay, but a lot of the back half just felt long and not as personal as it could have been)
Graphic: Self harm
Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Drug abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Fatphobia
sandphin's review
4.5
Moderate: Alcoholism and Self harm
Minor: Domestic abuse
balladofreadingqueer's review
3.5
The essays have a very particular perspective but I found points of connection and comparison with my own experiences throughout.
Many of the essays centre the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, and the ways that she both belongs and does not belong, the landscape, tornados and gun ownership.
I particularly appreciated the essays that examine and probe her difficult relationship to the lgbtq community as a ‘visibly queer’ woman in a relationship with a man, as she seems to feel disconnected from queerness and queer community. The essays also discuss bdsm, self-harm, academia, moths, gun ownership, polyamory, gender identity, motherhood and more.
I wish that there had been more acknowledgement of her ‘social location’ in some essays and I found some of the essays repetitive as they discussed similar feelings or scenarios. But I did find it interesting and useful to consider white midwestern queerness from her perspective.
Moderate: Alcoholism and Self harm
katsbooks's review against another edition
4.0
"I wonder, sometimes, if I believed in God, would I still feel so afraid?"
"In a small midwestern town, darkness gets buried like a secret."
"So often, though, the things we hope to be true about ourselves and the things we really want are incongruous."
"...bucking a traditional system is never easy."
"It takes a great deal of privilege--by way of money, education, and access--to live within one's ideals."
"...there are no good guys or bad guys. There is only us."
I really enjoyed this collection of essays. Faliveno's writing was really amazing. I liked how the essays were split up into sections. The sections made it easy to pause when I needed to since the essay's were a little longer than I liked. I also liked how the different sections tied together larger themes within each essay, however, sometimes the sections could be a little disjointed. I expected these essays to focus more on gender and sexuality, and while that is definitely a large focus of many of the essays, they explore much more than that. I identified with a lot of the author's conversation on what it's like to grow up as a woman in the Midwest. In addition to midwestern culture, gender and sexuality, the text also explored themes like motherhood, grief, cultural expectations, gun culture and one essay about moths that, I have to admit, I didn't quite understand.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Pedophilia and Abortion