Oh folks. I wanted very much to like this book--I'm always down for a good manifesto. I found it difficult to read at first, and I'm not sure why, but then it hit one of my Absolute No-Nos, and I couldn't put it down. It wasn't a hate-read, exactly, but it absolutely clarified certain things for me about certain forms of feminism.

So I will say first: Eltahawy's rightful and righteous anger is compelling, and it's clear she's deeply invested in protecting women and destroying patriarchy as she understands it, which is absolutely understandable. Her chapter on violence in particular asks a lot of difficult questions I think are worth chewing on, even if I am uncomfortable to some extent with their implications (as she wants me to be!) She draws on a huge number of international feminists of color and does not hold back and holding any number of nations responsible for their role in global patriarchy; I don't think anyone is really left unexamined.

What I was most enraged by was the ways in which trans women appeared in this book. Twice Eltahawy cites the statistic that the life expectancy of trans women of color is age 35, which is a statistic I'm familiar with as a nonbinary trans person who exists on the internet. That statistic is made up; no study has ever been produced of the life expectancy of trans people, period, and doing so would be incredibly difficult. In her first citation, the abstract of the report notes that the authors "had received information" from unspecified sources of the life expectancy numbers. This is my Big Beef; repeating that statistic is bad enough when it comes from trans people who are living with the threat of death (real or imagined) all the time, but now cis allies are repeating it. And not just repeating it--Eltahawy pairs the statistic with every time trans women make a major appearance in her arguments (first in her chapter on attention, where she notes that attention, a "sin" that women and girls must crave, is dangerous for trans women, and then again in her chapter on lust, where it appears alongside insisting we must consider trans women to be women) so that trans women are always alongside death in the text.

This makes sense if you understand the book to be almost wholly surrounding the experiences of cis women, which it is. Eltahawy draws repeatedly on ideas regarding socialization, though she doesn't not necessarily name it as such; these sins, she insists, women are socialized away from worldwide. Yet so many of these claims are around vaginas, menstruation, and little about the experiences of socialization are interrogated with regard to gender difference (though she is careful about race in particular, and class to a lesser extent.) Women must embrace these "sins" they have been socialized away from. Early in the book, Eltahawy insists she is not interested in the damage that patriarchy does to men, which a claim which I admire to a certain extent, but then the absence of trans men and transmasculine people, and thus of the problems they pose to her feminism, mean that she cannot actually interrogate the impact of patriarchy on people who are not cis women, despite her occasional inclusion of trans women (and once, very casually, trans men.) There is no interrogation of the impact of patriarchy on nonbinary people (as if that impact is singular, and impacts equally across all nonbinary people,) though she is quick to include them in her list of "women, nonbinary, and queer people." She includes the activism work of cis gay men in her book; she includes no trans voices at all. (Her chapter on lust also seems to hold little space for asexual people, for folks interested in that, nor does she speak of the potential of sex as a space of reenacting trauma etc, but I don't know that I expected the latter.)

Maybe I'm being too harsh because she hit on my Personal Specific Beef with the statistics, but I think the deployment of those statistics, and her inability to grapple with the problem that transgender people (especially trans men) pose to her ideas of feminism seem to indicate a larger problem within cis feminism. Eltahawy is not a TERF necessarily, though I think having her engage deeply in the legacies of radical feminism on her thinking would be really interesting (especially around issues of violence,) and she speaks the language of incorporation, but I'm left again with the understanding that mere incorporation without actually engaging in what the lives of transgender people (and trans women especially) entail in their relationship to patriarchy is not a feminism I find compelling.

This book was sort of like brain candy, in the way most books about dead white dudes are. I had a good time munching on that court conspiracy and manipulation--for a brick of a book, it felt like it pretty much flew by, and there were even some character moments that made me go "aww" and also laugh. I wouldn't say I was invested in it as a portrayal of a historical moment, as I'm not interested in that kind of history nor do I care about dead white dudes in that capacity (and oof on the characterizations of so many of the women,) but I definitely did like have a pretty good time eating it up. I don't know that I'll read more of the series, but I had a fine time and if you like reading about the Tudors I would say probably this is very much your jam. Definitely good for turning your brain off!

Every essay in this collection is so deeply, deeply good, accessible and brilliant at the same time. "In the Name of Beauty" might be the best essay in the collection, but every other essay is a deeply close second. She's just able to do so much in such little space (the collection itself is barely over 200 pages, the font in the copy I read was frankly pretty huge, and each essay flew by.) She also is able to explain how she does it, in the titular essay, and why the form is so important. Just every part of it is so deeply thought and also so well explained and explored. An incredible collection, and one you should definitely get your hands on if you're able.

I really enjoyed this--the book was short and FLEW by, but the pacing never once felt off. It was good to read a young YA book for a change, and the story was compelling and interesting.

My one big beef was the ableism involved in Orrec "being useless" for three years and his rage about it. Ursula, real people are blind! Maybe don't!

Otherwise I really enjoyed this book, and I am looking forward to starting the next one! If you want a quick and very satisfying read, I'd recommend this, just be aware of its Issue.

This was a fascinating collection that really made me chew on questions about possibilities for solidarity and also how we frame possibilities for disabled people around work in particular. Russell was clear and accessible in her writing, even when explaining Marxist theory--I borderline understand Marx now! I think I would have liked a little more context around some of the later pieces; though I appreciated the titles and the sites of original publication at the end, I think having them accompany the pieces would have helped with some context (as a person who was 15 at the end of the Bush administration, and therefore too young to really remember a lot that was happening in the early 2000s, I needed just a touch more background on some of those policy decisions.)

Regardless, I think some of the essays are definitely good for teaching, even as editor Keith Rosenthal resisted them as being read outside of the larger collection (not that I think he opposes it exactly, just that the construction of the book he makes clear is deliberately meant to be read as a whole.) It's clear that Russell's thought on the place of disabled people as a permanent unemployed class is critical in examining the ADA's employment enactments, and serves as a jumping off point for larger questions (especially around international solidarity, which Russell does not address very clearly in these pieces but which I think is a natural next step to consider after reading her work.) I definitely recommend reading this, especially if you are unfamiliar with what life after the passage of the ADA is like, and how the Supreme Court really stripped down what was possible under that law in the name of protecting business (that chapter in particular was deeply enraging!)

I'm thinking maybe books like this aren't wholly my thing, because I'm struggling with the format. I didn't find this super funny, which granted, I'm not sure it's supposed to be. I guess ultimately I don't actually care that much about Hollywood, and the places about which West writes, or I've read works by other authors that feel more insightful on the same topics (for all of my beef with it, I did think Mona Eltahway's The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls covered similar topics more effectively.) West seems to vacillate between acknowledging the horror of the current administration as a break, and as a continuation, in ways that are contradictory. If the US has always been like this, or been like it for many people (as she is quick to acknowledge) then some of what she writes looks late, or coming from someone who has only recently had to grapple with the realities of the current situation (which I don't think is true, but it definitely reads that way.( Again, I think comparing her writing to Tressie McMillan Cottom's writings about US politics in Thick makes this point better than I am making it in the moment, so I'd say read that book maybe alongside this one and see how you feel.

I get, I think, why people love her writing so much, and I can see how it would resonate with a certain audience, but ultimately I was mostly disappointed by this. Some of the essays were pretty good--her essay about Joan Rivers in particular was a lovely reflection--but overall I didn't love the book.

Just powerful, and with so many resources and great ideas. Piepzna-Samarasinha does an amazing job of drawing together QTBIPOC crip brilliance and really exploring care from this perspective. Even just being exposed to ideas around different ways that care happens between disabled people, especially in disabled, working class queer and trans communities of color, is both theoretically rich and practically useful and hugely important. They also include actual resources on things like accessible venues, and recognize all of that work, of organizing those resources and then enacting them, among others, as labor that needs to be addressed and reciprocated within our means. Strongly, strongly encourage folks to read this, as it's given me a lot to chew on and more places to go from reading it.

This was really just a delight. I powered through it pretty fast (it's not long!) and enjoyed every minute. The world was there but I never felt confused by it, and the plot moved along at an appropriate pace--it never really felt like plot was being crammed in to fit the space, which is a huge testament to the writing. I definitely want to read the next one, but gosh this just made me so happy; funny, unique voice, fast-paced plot but with characters you still definitely felt for and even managed to get to know a little bit in the confines of so short a story.

This book is incredible and changed my life in so many ways. So much of it is so important to queer theory (or should be) and feminist theory, and the way she challenges the reader to feel is so important. Although "The Master's Tools" is obviously an incredible (and incredibly widely cited) essay in this collection, and perhaps the most famous essay in here (with "The Uses of the Erotic" and/or "Poetry is Not a Luxury" coming in close second,) the piece that stands out to me the most is probably the conversation she has with Adrienne Rich--which, Rich's transphobic politics aside, needs to be required reading for any white woman who calls herself a feminist (and really should be required reading for all white women in general.) I know I will be going back to this book again and again, and learning new things from it each time, and I feel like it is really a gift to have read it.

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Reread 3/11/20: Just as incredible if not more incredible the second/third time. Each essay feels deeply relevant in this moment, from Lorde's visit to Russia in the 1980s to her writing on anger and rage, to the essays that are more often cited like "Use of the Erotic" and "Master's Tools." I definitely think everyone should read this book at least twice, and I am so glad I reread it now. If you haven't read it before, please check it out (if only because I'm convinced no one has ever done these essays justice in summing them up.)

This was just amazing; Abdurraqib writes so beautifully about music, and about the music of A Tribe Called Quest here specifically, but he also manages to do so much more--explore brotherhood and mercy, take small dives into histories of the publishing of Black magazines. I really loved this more than I expected to, and it makes me want to read more music writing like it. It's both personal and historical in these really wonderful ways, and I really enjoyed it.