Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Bad Feminist

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

30 reviews

nreyno's review against another edition

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challenging funny reflective medium-paced

3.5

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cryptofauna's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective slow-paced

2.75

i REALLY wanted to like this one but i just couldn't. i forced myself to finish it for the promise of a review at the end but i'm mostly just disappointed.
i think my main problem is that it doesn't feel like a book. it obviously says essays on the front, and they were essays for sure, but it didn't feel coherent enough to be united as a book or under the title bad feminist. the essays themselves were pretty good, i liked some more than others, but together it felt kind of endless and rambly, especially because it seemed like most of them weren't actually about feminism.
some of it was interesting but i was actively skipping essays towards the end bc i was just over it.

feminism is ovb intersectional, and i value all the stuff she was talking about independently, but it didn't feel connected. it really felt like gay had a lot of essays on her blog that she liked, and wanted to somehow fit into a book, so she wrote an essay for the beginning and at the end to establish the bad feminist thing

like i said, i agreed with her on most things, mostly the main points, (racisms is bad, depictions of minority groups in media, the big important stuff) rather than her thoughts on trigger warnings which i didn't 100% agree on, as well as other non-important ones that i kind of don't remember specifics of (because i was so desperate to finish this book that could not hold my attention whatsoever)

i appreciated a book that gave more insights and opinions on these topics that makes you think harder about intersectionality (especially the black experience which ovb i don't know as well), but while she had opinions that could be divisive if you're evil, it felt a little bit like preaching to the choir sometimes, and she spent a lot of time covering her ass. every time she would make a new statement or opinion, i felt like she would say something along the lines of "what im not saying is that men are evil and should die" which like. yes? i don't honestly know for sure what my criticism here is but it felt weird and out of place that she spent so much time defending parts of her opinions that didn't really require it. if you're reading the book, you're probably not sitting there being like "wow she clearly thinks black men should stop making movies!". this is hyperbolic and maybe it didn't happen as much as im saying it did, but it was enough to notice when it happened repeatedly and something about it was irritating to me.

overall, i liked her writing style and her thoughts if i was just reading her essays as standalone pieces of writing, but all together i found it fairly boring as much as i tried to love and be strongly affected by it. also, i did not know like any of the media she was reviewing which isn't her fault, but also feels sort of necessary to understand the actual depth of the writing.
sorry roxane gay i had high hopes this one just isn't for me. i may seek out her blog/essays to read more of her writing in its natural habitat, because she really is a talented writer with a lot of in depth thoughts that she explains fairly well, it just became SO long winded and tiring reading them one after another. you cannot understand the relief i felt when i was done with this.

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vaykay's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

3.5

I struggle sometimes to review older material such as Bad Feminist (10 years later) because oftentimes it loses relevancy. Many essays in this book have lost all relevancy or are on popular cultural artifacts that have been discussed to shit by now (i.e. The Help and Orange is the New Black). It isn't a crime to be dated or to discuss the then-and-now with no concern for how relevant it will be 10 years from now, but I want to warn other readers that much of it is outdated. Many essays were good and interesting; some essays were extremely hypocritical and irritating due to what felt like an elementary level of self-reflection and understanding as well as comfortability with her voice as an essay writer. Gay's implications that reveling in more traditionally feminine things like pink, materialism, weddings, and — I guess — sucking dick means you're not a feminist (or at least not a good one) was weird. That implication was probably the least feminist thing about Bad Feminist because in her moment of self-doubt and projection, she tore down other women. It felt weird and uncomfortable... and not the sort of discomfort that is well-meaning in its ability to challenge you. Unfortunately, the first and last essays are the worst ones in the text, which seems like an interesting choice to hook readers and leave them fulfilled by the ending.

That said, I want to read more of Gay's more recent work to see how her voice and ideas have grown and changed in the last 10 years.

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smkoontz's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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evangelinew's review against another edition

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funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I really enjoyed it. Tore through. I don’t agree on everything, and some parts haven’t aged perfectly, but I think that’s alright. She is witty, smart, and admirable. Most of all I found her prose and perspective fascinating. In the best possible way, I see myself in Gay so much in terms of passions and experiences, but rarely in how she sees the world.

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florizona's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

2.25

This wasn’t really what I expected- rather than a collection of serious essays, it’s more like a series of hastily written, personal POV-driven op-ed columns. Nothing particularly well-considered, heavy-hitting or profound. Just not into it at all, despite enjoying some other writing by the author.

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jordansmoot's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Reading this in 2023 is a wild experience. So many events from the early 10s I was happy to have forgotten, but it’s also important to remember that this was not that long ago.

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bessjoyce's review against another edition

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challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

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qteabeans's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

While this collection is almost a decade old, the topics are still fiercely relevant. Thoughtful and challenging. Definitely still worth a read.

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leweylibrary's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective slow-paced

3.75

I feel like a jerk rating this so low because it's Roxane Gay and she's amazing, but I felt like the essays were a little all over the place for me? They were all well written of course and many were powerful, but there was just hat something special, that oomph missing for me I guess.

It is fascinating thinking about how these essays were written almost ten years ago and so many of the issues they deal with are still just as prevalent now. And not in a fun way, in a depressing way.

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