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A review by anavtelana
Women Don't Owe You Pretty by Florence Given
3.0
I received an audio ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.
So I just finished listening to this audiobook and it was a fairly pleasant experience.
I really liked that the author of the book was the one who read it out loud, because it feels like she is talking to you personally. As I said, I enjoyed reading this book and I found the topics that were talked about very interesting. Nevertheless, I felt like it superficially touched on many different themes, but she didn't seem to completely dive into them. Because of that, I think I would have liked this book much more if I had read it some years ago, when I didn't know what I do now about feminism, because this felt kind of repetitive, like listening to something that I had already heard. Buuuut also, precisely because of this aspect, I think this book could be amazing for some people as an introduction to feminism! Did I agree with everything she said? Not really, but I think that it was for the most part a pretty good read.
* One thing that I realised after I finished the book was that some people were saying Florence Given, the author, plagiarised part of the book or, at least, was hugely inspired by Chidera Eggerue - a woman of color - and her work "What a Time to Be Alone". And apparently Florence failed to give credit. I don't know enough about the situation and I haven't read Chidera's book, so I can't be certain that this is true. But if it is, I think Florence, as she herself acknowledges in her book that she has many privileges as a non-disabled, cis, white woman, should apologise and use her huge platform to amplify the voices of other women or non binary people that aren't as privileged.
** Okay, now I feel bad because maybe that was too harsh. I usually don't comment on those kind of things but I thought it was definitely important to point that out. Hopefully Florence will be able to learn from this and act on all the wonderful things she talked about in her book <3
So I just finished listening to this audiobook and it was a fairly pleasant experience.
I really liked that the author of the book was the one who read it out loud, because it feels like she is talking to you personally. As I said, I enjoyed reading this book and I found the topics that were talked about very interesting. Nevertheless, I felt like it superficially touched on many different themes, but she didn't seem to completely dive into them. Because of that, I think I would have liked this book much more if I had read it some years ago, when I didn't know what I do now about feminism, because this felt kind of repetitive, like listening to something that I had already heard. Buuuut also, precisely because of this aspect, I think this book could be amazing for some people as an introduction to feminism! Did I agree with everything she said? Not really, but I think that it was for the most part a pretty good read.
* One thing that I realised after I finished the book was that some people were saying Florence Given, the author, plagiarised part of the book or, at least, was hugely inspired by Chidera Eggerue - a woman of color - and her work "What a Time to Be Alone". And apparently Florence failed to give credit. I don't know enough about the situation and I haven't read Chidera's book, so I can't be certain that this is true. But if it is, I think Florence, as she herself acknowledges in her book that she has many privileges as a non-disabled, cis, white woman, should apologise and use her huge platform to amplify the voices of other women or non binary people that aren't as privileged.
** Okay, now I feel bad because maybe that was too harsh. I usually don't comment on those kind of things but I thought it was definitely important to point that out. Hopefully Florence will be able to learn from this and act on all the wonderful things she talked about in her book <3