dvester's review against another edition
3.0
I felt the book started strong and kept me interested. However I feel it could have be shortened. There were moments when she repeated herself and then also contradicted some of things she said. I began to lose interest in it.
_sar_ah's review against another edition
3.0
I appreciated gay's critiques of pop culture but found myself wanting her to go deeper. the essays are concise, witty and probably a good intro to feminist ideas if you want to get familiar without reading dense theory
cwynn214's review against another edition
3.0
There were a few chapters/essays that I would have given 5 stars too. Roxane Gay is a really phenomenal writer with some interesting insights. But I got bogged down by a lot of the essays. This is probably my fault as I wasn't familiar with a lot of the movies and books she talks about, but it made for a lot of long stretches where it was hard to focus. Still, I loved her idea of "bad feminism" and it is something I really can relate to. I loved her introduction and ending, her chapter on privilege and her one on her first year as a professor. I liked the thought that feminism should be focused on letting women make their own choices, not telling women what choices to make.
Two favorite quotes:
“I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.”
“I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.”
Two favorite quotes:
“I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.”
“I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.”
saydenie's review against another edition
4.0
While I did not connect to or understand every essay in this book, I loved it because I would also consider myself a "bad feminist." I love make-up and hair products, I often cast myself in the nurturing role in relationships because I enjoy taking care of others, like the author I love hip hop music and I know nothing about cars (nor do I care to). But as the author states, "I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all."
cardigansandcandles's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.75
alixgb's review against another edition
3.0
It took me a while to get through the book, partially because some of the subject matter was dense and emotionally heavy, and partially just to space out some of these great essays. I found myself mulling over the information and talking about the essays with friends. There was a lot of overlap in the themes and subject matter, but rightfully so. It was a good balance of personal and political. I very much related to the author and recommend the book to anyone interested in race and gender justice issues.
juliekatebrooks's review against another edition
2.0
I can look past the sloppy writing. I can look past the notion that Gay thinks she is producing blinding insights about society. What I can't look past is the fact that this book does not fulfill its promise to the reader. When I picked up "Bad Feminist", I was expecting a book about feminism that would take previous stances on modern feminism and ADD something. Gay rambles on about a myriad of topics without ever tying those back to how they relate to feminism at all, let alone bad feminism, whatever that means. And yet. (For those who haven't read Gay's diatribe, she relies on this sentence a lot. Like, I thought it was clever the first time I read it, but I finally realized this is just bad writing.) Some of the essays I enjoyed, particularly "Peculiar Beliefs." But again, that essay is not even about feminism; it is about privilege, which ties to feminism, I understand, but Gay wants the reader to assume the connection instead of clearly relating the topics through transitions. For God's sake, the woman is a writing teacher with a PhD and this is the best she can put together? The mind reels. Like many other reviewers have pointed out, there are some good bits that Gay should have expanded on and others she should have cut out. Overall, if you're looking for a book about feminism, skip this one entirely.