Books shelved under “Feminism”

I suppose I should start with one of those disclaimers about how I received a free electronic copy of this from NetGalley and Algonquin Young Readers. However, I also preordered two hard copies with my own money (OK, someone else’s money in gift card form) even before that request was approved. But why wait a whole three weeks when I could read it earlier than that? That’s how excited I am for Here We Are:…

I still haven’t read Bad Feminist. But when I saw Roxane Gay’s new collection of short stories up for request on NetGalley, I leapt at the chance to read them. So thanks, NetGalley and Grove Press, for this opportunity.

Trigger warning in this review and book for discussions of rape and assault.

In many ways, Difficult Women seems like a kind of spiritual successor to Bad Feminist. Again, I haven’t read the essay…

She doesn’t want to get married.

She wants her darker skin to be celebrated, not medicated.

She wants to escape the memories of abuse at the hands of her uncle and break the cycle for her own daughter.

She wants a job and doesn’t understand why it’s so hard for the men who might hire her to look her in the eye instead of her breasts.

None of these stories are my stories. My story…

Trainwreck was published on my birthday, so it was kind of like Jude Ellison S. Doyle was giving me a birthday gift. Not really, at all, in any way. But still, a great coincidence. I’ve enjoyed reading their writing on various sites for years now, so when I heard they had an honest-to-goodness actual book coming out, I was elated. Fortunately, Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear … and Why does…

Wow, this one was rough. I had to borrow the audiobook version from my library/Hoopla because that was the only format available, and it is the abridged audio edition. I normally avoid abridged editions. What’s the point in missing out on a bunch of the book? In the case of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, however, I think I’ll make an exception. This is just a terrible, even actively harmful book,…

The same friend who lent me Decoded asked me if I wanted to borrow Men Explain Things to Me, which is great, because it has been on my list for a while now. When I went over to her house, she handed me the book. A mutual friend who was there and only in town until early the next week then said, “Can you read it really quickly so I can have it?” So…

Trumpet is the August pick for the Banging Book Club, an online, tweet-fuelled read of books about sex and sexuality hosted by Hannah Witton, Leena Norms, and Lucy Moon. This is a nice change of pace after a few months of non-fiction books. All of the fiction books so far have been excellent but in such different ways. The two previous novels (Asking For It and All the Rage) had similar topics…

I hate listicles. I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t click on any post that starts with a number in its title. I know, I know, #notalllisticles, some are well-written and informative.

A Little Gay History is, when you think about it, a listicle; you could retitle it “82 Objects from the British Museum Related to Gay Sexual Desire”. Listicles were around before the Internet, and I suppose they will outlive the Internet…

Back in Grade 4, a small group of peers asked me if I was a virgin.

Not knowing what a virgin was, I said no. Well, that certainly got them laughing. And I got very upset.

This incident has stuck in my memory (which is otherwise very much a sieve through which most details inevitably fall) for a few reasons. Firstly, it was one of the few times I ever felt bullied in school,…

This book was like tearing the scab off a freshly healed wound. It’s been so long since I’ve had to deal with the shittiness that is evolutionary psychology, and then Naomi Wolf comes along and reminds me of just how terrible it is all over again.

Well, let’s do this.

Vagina: A New Biography is Wolf’s syncretism of Eastern teachings about sex (particularly Tantra) with Western medicine, with a particular focus on the way women…

“But what about the men?” It’s a common refrain heard from people who have misinterpreted, or been misinformed about, the aims of feminism and its related movements. So-called “meninist” and “men’s rights activists” encourage the question, because they want to push the view that feminists want to attain women’s liberation and equality at the expense of men. As one men’s rights activist discovered, when one engages with the actual critical theory underlying feminism,…

Louise O’Neill is scary good at writing amazing but depressing books. I thought her second novel, Asking For It, was powerful, but her debut, Only Ever Yours, is arguably even darker. I’m happy I picked it up, but not happy having read it—this is about as far from a feel-good book as one gets.

I want to put some trigger warnings on this book and review but am not sure where to draw…

I read most, if not all, of the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid (of course). I was very moved by Anne’s journey and transition to adulthood; even then, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a teacher, and so I was fascinated by her career path. While the details of the story have blurred with time, one memory continues to stick with me. In none book, Anne and a friend are…

Ugh, so many feelings. I’ve consciously been trying to write shorter reviews, but this is not going to be one of those. It will be spoilerific and angry—also, trigger warnings for rape and suicide. If you’re down for all that, buckle up—otherwise, I have literally more than a thousand other reviews you could read right now. Here’s one of the aptly-titled Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, which is funny and uplifting. Asking for It…

Hmm … tricky.

The Vagina Monologues is the February book for the Banging Book Club, run by Hannah Witton, Lucy Moon, and Leena Norms. It’s also the first book I’ve read for the book club, because I ordered January’s pick, Asking For It, on January 1 … and it only arrived from the UK yesterday.

Anyway, this is a tough one to review, for a few reasons—not all of them having to do…

Full disclosure: I received a free ARC of I’m Coming from House of Anansi Press. In fact, this book came with a tiny promotional package:

Yeah, that’s a small package of vaginal lubricant and two AA batteries—presumably to, you know, power Mr Rabbit, or whatever shape one’s vibrator takes.

Fortunately, one of my friends—who would actually have a use for such items—saw me tweet about this and volunteered to take them off my hands. I…

This book has an amazing title, and amazing art, and very clever writing. It’s filled to the brim with witty advice and brief interviews from a panoply of self-proclaimed fangirls. So why did it leave me feeling so meh?

Obvious disclaimer here: I identify as a cis man, so by most definitions I’m not really a fangirl, and I’m never going to experience the discrimination that women often face when they present as geeks…

I very quickly decided I did not like Jill McTeague very much. In fact, my dislike of her was exceeded only by my dislike of her mother (but we’ll get to that). I thought Jill was shallow, rude, and selfish in the way she handles her monthly transformation into Jack.

And I was right.

And that’s one reason why Cycler is a powerful book. Although Jill is one of the protagonists and one of the…

I actually don’t read Lightspeed all that much, so it’s hard for me to evaluate this special edition in that context. All I can say is that this is packed full of good content. In addition to original stories there are reprints, some good flash fiction (one of which is my all-time favourite of the volume), non-fiction discussions and essays, and a novel excerpt. It’s good times.

I didn’t like every, or maybe even most,…

Wait, Queers Dig Time Lords? But I thought Chicks Dig Time Lords! Who else digs time lords—small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri? Soon there won’t be any time lord left for straight, white men! Think of the menz!

Seriously though, having read three of these fandom-celebration books from Mad Norwegian Press already, I was looking forward to Queers Dig Time Lords. I should note that since reading Chicks Dig Time Lords three…