A review by itsgeesus
Girlcrush by Florence Given

Did not finish book. Stopped at 38%.
This was a DNF for me. Not once, but twice. The first time around I got further in, but in both instances, this genuinely made me so frustrated. This is very much a fanaticising of Given's life and experiences, and this is quite clear if you've been following her on social media for quite some time. Obviously, that wasn't the issue, sort of. The issue for me was the superiority complex that is force-fed down your throat in every. single. page. The idea is that men are a vicious entity here to steal women of their individuality and worth and that our only existence is to please men. Eartha's boyfriend is the epitome of this, and it got to the point where I was so uncomfortable with the attitude being communicated to me. Now I've absolutely adored Given's non-fiction novel Women Don't Owe You Pretty, and will easily devour feminist discourse novels and essays, but Girlcrush was neither. It was a mess of a rant that tried to paint women as the superior, and it didn't work. I really tried to enjoy the queer explorations of this, but even then, the way these themes were communicated wasn't done right. Ironically, a book written by a queer woman still somehow fetishised WLW relationships and female sexuality, and this was not even 50 pages in. It just got to the point where I was genuinely getting angry at how this was written, which was a shame because the premise of the novel is great, and I was really looking forward to reading it when the novel came out. 

All I can say is yikes. 
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