The beginning and the end of this were both really good. I started out thinking it would be a four star read, and Valenti's recollection of the casual leering and touching that many children are exposed to, even when they're preteens, is both recognisable and chilling. Similarly, the end is also compelling, with the premature birth of her daughter, the strain of trying to nurture a very unwell little baby, and the fear of what her daughter will be exposed to in the future... it's not anything new in the realms of feminism, but it's relatable.

It's the central three-fifths or so that lose comparative interest for me. It's a litany of Valenti's sexual relationships, from the first adolescent romance to her eventual husband, and with the exception of the husband they all seem like unpleasant people. It's bad relationship after bad relationship, over and over, and while I understand that this book is meant to do what it says on the tin, to explore the ways in which the men around Valenti treat her as a sex object and nothing but, it comes across as just plain repetitive. Which I suppose is the point - a depressing point, certainly - but from my reading perspective it's deadening as well as depressing, and it doesn't dig a whole lot deeper past that bare recording. This is a short book, but it could have been a lot shorter, I think, and not much would have been lost.

Those anonymous, abusive emails from the fucking losers at the end, though... what a bunch of pathetic no-hopers.