Bad Feminist

Essays

“Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there.” — Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?

A New York Times Bestseller

Best Book of the Year: NPR • Boston Globe • Newsweek • Time Out New York • Oprah.com • Miami Herald • Book Riot • Buzz Feed • Globe and Mail (Toronto) • The Root • Shelf Awareness

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched cultural observers of her generation

In these funny and insightful essays, Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics.

not what I expected

so, it took a 3 hours for me to get "into" this book. At first it felt as if I was stuck in an elevator with a woman that would not stop talking about herself and it was driving me crazy! However, something changes halfway through and I thoroughly enjoyed her thoughts on Django, The Help, and reproductive health care . Giving it 3 stars plus one for great narration.

Gay is a role model of how to be human

I very much enjoyed these collections of essays. I wish the book came with a list prerequisite reading/watching. If you are big feminist this is both a must and many things may already feel like you know. But so what listener!!! It is so nice to have someone restate the feminist motifs in such an inclusive and compassionate way. Also pop-culture is fun. Loosen up. Yes, now I feel like need to watch Girlfriends which is not a desire I was looking to cultivate but I also feel like that is Ok. Gay gives me the space to be a bad feminist, try my hardest and also like not... all at the same time.

loved it

I loved it. It has opened my mind on a new way think, that I might have been ignorant of. I like that Gay suggest that we should be critical of very information that is thrown at us. We have a long way to go in this world as women.

Wonderful Experience

So intelligently put together. She pulled me into the book, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

A need to finish

Took me a while to get through, I think mainly because Gay tackled issues I thought I was on top of but soon realized..no, actually I wasn't. What this book did, how she crafted the dialog, striking, disturbing , truthful and funny, opened my perspective about many issues. I would highly recommend you go on that journey with her and listen to her words..