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A review by bybyberry
A Short History of Queer Women by Kirsty Loehr
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
3.75
After getting this book, I added it to my Goodreads, found the reviews, and got a bit scared. But it was actually a pleasant read!
As the title says, this is a "short history of queer women" and it's meant to be a light, informal and fun read, an open door into queer history if you then want to seek out more academic and historical texts. It certainly piqued my curiosity! I think it did a great job drawing a sort of rough outline of queer women and afab throughout the years and in several countries. I feel like I learned a lot through this book.
My main issue with the book is that the informal tone sometimes makes it sort of difficult to know what's storytelling, added to the author for 'fun', and what's real. Especially as the approach to sources in this book is a bit strange - no footnotes, just a bunch of books cited at the end of the book. But once again, the approach of this book is more leaning toward storytelling and not an academic text.
I didn't mind the humor and I laughed a bunch of times; lots of jokes are sort of queer women inside jokes, which I appreciate, though it sometimes came in the middle of heavy subjects that maybe required a bit of a more toned-down approach. It also sometimes felt like the author was inserting herself a bit too much into her comments.
I also wished the author dived a bit more into gender. She does mention the possibility of people being trans a few times, but as this review said, "choosing not to apply modern gender discourse to historic figures, but confidently identifying historic figures with modern terms for different sexual orientations felt a little at odds with itself".
Overall a few things could have been done better, but it manages to make queer women's history approachable and fun, and makes you want to learn more!
As the title says, this is a "short history of queer women" and it's meant to be a light, informal and fun read, an open door into queer history if you then want to seek out more academic and historical texts. It certainly piqued my curiosity! I think it did a great job drawing a sort of rough outline of queer women and afab throughout the years and in several countries. I feel like I learned a lot through this book.
My main issue with the book is that the informal tone sometimes makes it sort of difficult to know what's storytelling, added to the author for 'fun', and what's real. Especially as the approach to sources in this book is a bit strange - no footnotes, just a bunch of books cited at the end of the book. But once again, the approach of this book is more leaning toward storytelling and not an academic text.
I didn't mind the humor and I laughed a bunch of times; lots of jokes are sort of queer women inside jokes, which I appreciate, though it sometimes came in the middle of heavy subjects that maybe required a bit of a more toned-down approach. It also sometimes felt like the author was inserting herself a bit too much into her comments.
I also wished the author dived a bit more into gender. She does mention the possibility of people being trans a few times, but as this review said, "choosing not to apply modern gender discourse to historic figures, but confidently identifying historic figures with modern terms for different sexual orientations felt a little at odds with itself".
Overall a few things could have been done better, but it manages to make queer women's history approachable and fun, and makes you want to learn more!