![]() This is a book that had me - from paragraph to paragraph - laughing or crying. and maybe the quirks make her characters kind of unlikeable to a reader in theory, but she writes them with such compassion and softness that, in the end, they all resonate with you. people who are so flawed and quirky, but absolutely real because of that. her characters have such character and it's one of the things i love most about her writing. or suddenly, just someone you can imagine, conjured up in every idiosyncratic detail in front of you. until you realize that she's talking about someone you know or someone you heard about. On the surface, anne tyler's characters are so weird and quirky and hard to relate to. The accidental tourist by anne tyler last read and reviewed in july i especially appreciated essays by brad perry and julia serano for this, and stacey may fowles for making me test (but ultimately mostly uphold) a long-held belief that i hadn't revisited in a while. essays that didn't take for granted that the reader was already convinced, and so made some fantastic arguments for their feminist positions, often in ways that were new to me or that added something different to the conversation. That said, there were a few essays that spoke to the choir (and probably everyone) with a number of 'yes, of course!' moments. If someone read that and put the book down, they would never have gotten to jaclyn friedman's great piece, or the really interesting ideas presented by hanne blank and cara kulwicki. ![]() and personally, that makes me kind of angry, because if you drive away the very people you need on your side, then how do things change? someone who is not already on board with feminism or understanding rape culture or who you should be focusing your energy on explaining/convincing is just going to walk away when they read something like that. when someone (tiloma jayasinghe) writes, "Legislation proposed in several states would make pregnancy a crime," i really need there to be some citation. I consider myself a radical feminist but still had trouble with many of these essays. The book unfortunately starts out with a number of the essays on this end of the spectrum, and i doubt if anyone who isn't already convinced of what this book is proposing (basically that healthy sex education should consist not just of what it looks like when someone says 'no,' but also what enthusiastic consent looks like, and how to promote a positive view of healthy sex, especially for girls, whose sexuality in particular has been demonized) could get past these essays to the much better ones further along in the book. a few really stood out but so many of them were either preaching to the choir (there is value in this because it can be affirming) without providing a new perspective or new information, or making incredible leaps of logic without connecting the dots for the reader, alienating (i can only assume) anyone not in the aforementioned choir. i wanted to like all these essays, but some of them just didn't work for me. My review: as is true with most collections, there is a range of quality here. Yes means yes edited by jaclyn friedman and jessica valenti read sept 2013 NEXT: A book you have actually read the title of whcih starts with U, and what you thought of the book. I found its old-fashioned style greatly moving, to the extent I copied a sample into my journal: ".and then of long hours spent in bitter tears and lamentations, and melancholy musings in the lonely valley, with eternal music in my ears, of the west wind rushing through the over-shadowing trees, and the brook babbling and gurgling along its stony bed-my eyes, for the most part vacantly fixed in the deep, checkered shades restlessly playing over the bright sunny grass at my feet, where now and then a withered leaf or two would come dancing to share the revelry, but my heart was away up the hill in that dark room where she was weeping desolate and alone-she whom I was not to comfort, not to see again, till years or suffering had overcome us both, and torn our spirits from their perishing abodes of clay." Clearly, I said to myself, the writing is not genius, but it seems quintessentially Victorian. Yet I read it with avidity and tremendous enjoyment. I found this, on sober analysis, not nearly as well crafted as the more famous novels of Anne Bronte's sisters, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte (read )
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