(#gifted @penguinukbooks) If you’re looking for a book to gift a teenager or someone just starting out with feminism then this is the one! I really enjoyed reading essays, some serious, some more lighthearted, from women of all different backgrounds on when they discovered feminism and what their personal feminist journey looks like.

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One that really stood out was Keira Knightley’s ‘The Weaker Sex’, where she opens up about the brutality of motherhood and how her relationship with her work changed once she had a child. The disparity between her and her male colleagues was obvious - she is expected to be word perfect, work twice as hard while being twice as tired, while her male counterparts are sloppy, late, don’t know their lines and haven’t gotten up at 3am to do a feed. I also loved Beanie Feldstein’s life motto of ‘stuffing your pockets’ with other women’s stories and experiences, listening to them properly and carrying those stories with you always.

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Some of the essays tackle extremely important, even life-threatening, topics such as transitioning to female, the death penalty, poverty and FGM, and as a result some of the more lighthearted essays feel trite. It’s good to address a broad spectrum of topics, but some of the more frivolous ones feel out of place, and you want more space given to those urgent topics.

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But then I read the extra essay by Scarlett Curtis at the end of the paperback edition which I really appreciated. She actually addresses her concerns that some feminists would find some of the essays too frivolous. But this book is meant to be used as a diving board, encouraging people to ask questions and reach for more books, books which approach the topics touched upon here in a more in depth manner.

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I would definitely recommend this one for younger teen readers, but you can’t go wrong at any age really!

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*Disclosure: this book was originally gifted as part of an advertising campaign for the paperback release. I was not obligated to post a review and all opinions are my own!