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amylangdown_'s review
emotional
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
A wonderful and witty look into the history of queer women. I learned many new things. I really love a funny historical book, and Kirsty Loehr hits the nail on the head, balancing the seriousness of historical anti-queerness and humorous tales.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Addiction, Death, Hate crime, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, and Classism
nenaveenstra's review
funny
informative
fast-paced
3.75
I can’t fault this book for doing exactly what it says on the tin; Kristy Loehr gives a very brief overview of what we know about queer women in history. However, in being so brief, she has made some questionable choices. The most important of which being that the queer women discussed in this book, are mostly lesbian women, or women who we would refer to as lesbians nowadays. Sure, bisexual and trans women are acknowledged in this book, and I appreciate that, but I wish they had gotten more page time.
I think this book tried to be funny, while also giving the reader names and titles for further reading, and I think it succeeded in that, and yet it leaves me feeling… unsatisfied. What I really wanted from this book was to gain new knowledge that I could tell all my queer friends the next time we meet up, but instead, I got homework. All of the information in this book was very surface-level, and with the humorous nature of this book, I wasn’t even sure if I could trust all of it.
That being said, I did enjoy this read, and I will lend it out to my friends who want to know more about queer history. Although this book might be surface-level, it sure does succeed in sparking the interest of the reader, and it functions as an excellent sample of all there is to learn. On top of that, I liked how aware it was of intersectionality, and that not just white/European-centered stories were portrayed. It was actually quite diverse!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Biphobia, Cursing, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Sexual content
Obviously, queer history is filled with a lot of trauma and grief. The content warnings above refer to that, as well as the writing style of the author - but I don't think this book itself is transphobic at all.booksjessreads's review
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
Overall, a really informative short book about the history of queer women which was witty and funny but also reflective of identity and queerness for women. There were a lot of gems in this book of whom I wasn't aware, and it was great for them to be written about in such a positive way.
The queer joy that emanated from this book was superior and I really enjoyed this element of the book. To say this is also a non-fiction book, it reads so easy which is helped by the matter-of-fact writing which made things so much more digestible. Alongside the jokes and the wit, this just made it a breeze to read. One issue though, was that sometimes, there was just too much cringe jokes and sometimes they could have been cut out, they just weren't needed constantly. It did stop more towards the end, but especially in the beginning, it felt like the witty writing was used to pad areas out.
Furthermore, another issue was that nothing was referenced throughout, but rather a list of sources was presented at the end. It would have helped to have those references throughout to follow up sources so we could do more research. However, I appreciate that without the footnotes etc. it did make it look more appealing to read and this was probably the purpose behind that.
Regardless, it was a really great introduction to queer women in history and I look forward to going back through and researching these wonderful women in more depth. An overall really good read.
The queer joy that emanated from this book was superior and I really enjoyed this element of the book. To say this is also a non-fiction book, it reads so easy which is helped by the matter-of-fact writing which made things so much more digestible. Alongside the jokes and the wit, this just made it a breeze to read. One issue though, was that sometimes, there was just too much cringe jokes and sometimes they could have been cut out, they just weren't needed constantly. It did stop more towards the end, but especially in the beginning, it felt like the witty writing was used to pad areas out.
Furthermore, another issue was that nothing was referenced throughout, but rather a list of sources was presented at the end. It would have helped to have those references throughout to follow up sources so we could do more research. However, I appreciate that without the footnotes etc. it did make it look more appealing to read and this was probably the purpose behind that.
Regardless, it was a really great introduction to queer women in history and I look forward to going back through and researching these wonderful women in more depth. An overall really good read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Religious bigotry, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Racism, Sexual content, and Transphobia
Minor: Suicide attempt
citrusboombox's review
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
4.0
Very funny condensed history of queer women (predominantly lesbians). As others have noted it was a bit odd that there were no cited sources or references, but as a beginners overview into the topic it did brilliantly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Racism
mold_munchr's review
challenging
funny
informative
fast-paced
3.0
the writing style, although fun for the first few pages, got quite repetitive. I also wish the author had included sources, or at least made a clearer distinction on what was fact vs what was embellishment from her own imagination (as she admits to this).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Lesbophobia
foxo_cube's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.0
This book was alright, I suppose, but it was trying too hard to be funny and it's a bit obnoxious.
The cover is 10/10 and I think the people and topics that Loehr discusses are important - I'm definitely going to put some of the bibliography on my to-read list - but it's hard to take it seriously. It's not like history (or non-fiction in general) has to be written in a really dry or academic way, don't get me wrong, but it's just a bit... well, too much for me. The most bizarre "funny quip" was "Oh, the older relative! We've all been there. For me, it was a sexy great-aunt." Have we? Have we really all been there? Ending the book with "Right, I need to get laid." was also certainly a decision. Maybe I'm too asexual to understand and this is on me.
It's not a bad overview of the history of wlw, I don't think, and it's good to see something written about the people who are notoriously straight-washed or just ignored. There is a glaring lack of mention of trans lesbians, and a couple of people are included who it seems might not have been too fond of being included in the category of "women". Some acknowledgement of genderqueer, women-adjacent people is there, but generally only those who were AFAB. I don't believe the author is transphobic per se, but there's occasional hints of transphobic bias, if that makes any sense. The book does acknowledge that the terminology we have now is kind of hard to apply retrospectively to people who didn't have the same language with which to self-identify, which is very true, so I'll give it that. Still, I would have thought more gender theory-based stuff would be included in a book about queer women, you know?
I don't feel like this book was a waste of my time, but I don't know how highly I'd recommend it, either. There's some really fascinating pieces of history between the cringe, but I guess your mileage may vary!
The cover is 10/10 and I think the people and topics that Loehr discusses are important - I'm definitely going to put some of the bibliography on my to-read list - but it's hard to take it seriously. It's not like history (or non-fiction in general) has to be written in a really dry or academic way, don't get me wrong, but it's just a bit... well, too much for me. The most bizarre "funny quip" was "Oh, the older relative! We've all been there. For me, it was a sexy great-aunt." Have we? Have we really all been there? Ending the book with "Right, I need to get laid." was also certainly a decision. Maybe I'm too asexual to understand and this is on me.
It's not a bad overview of the history of wlw, I don't think, and it's good to see something written about the people who are notoriously straight-washed or just ignored. There is a glaring lack of mention of trans lesbians, and a couple of people are included who it seems might not have been too fond of being included in the category of "women". Some acknowledgement of genderqueer, women-adjacent people is there, but generally only those who were AFAB. I don't believe the author is transphobic per se, but there's occasional hints of transphobic bias, if that makes any sense. The book does acknowledge that the terminology we have now is kind of hard to apply retrospectively to people who didn't have the same language with which to self-identify, which is very true, so I'll give it that. Still, I would have thought more gender theory-based stuff would be included in a book about queer women, you know?
I don't feel like this book was a waste of my time, but I don't know how highly I'd recommend it, either. There's some really fascinating pieces of history between the cringe, but I guess your mileage may vary!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, and Lesbophobia
andreapap15's review
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
2.25
a good starting point for people who want to know more about historical lesbians, but the tone and humour of the author didn't always land
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Lesbophobia
mimithorp's review
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.0
Fast to read, enjoyable and humourous, but it's frustrating that no sources are provided during the actual body of the text (there are some notes on sources at the end) and while the witty sarcastic feel helps the pace, it is still used in some more serious moments which feels a little distasteful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, and Lesbophobia
mel_j's review
dark
inspiring
0.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Death, Rape, and Antisemitism
Might have enjoyed this a lot more if it wasn't so transphobic. The humor wasn't for me, either.bronzeageholly's review
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Lesbophobia