Are you loving Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West?
I cannot tell you how much I love this book. Her voice is so refreshingly honest and feminist. From wearing crop tops until they are just crop tops and having an abortion with all of the emotional turmoil that comes from that event, West captures the essence of being a woman in the 21st century in such a clear and relatable manner. This week we read the first 85 pages of the novel, and I'm curious to hear what stuck out the most for you.
Here are three passages I felt inspired by the most, drawn straight from the text:
1. A fat man can be Tony Soprano; he can be Dan from Roseanne (still my number one celeb crush); he can be John Candy, funny without being a human sight gag -- but fat women were sexless mothers, pathetic punch lines, or gruesome villains [3].
2. The "perfect body" is a lie. I believed in it for a long time, and I let it shape my life, and shrink it -- my real life, populated by my real body. Don't let fiction tell you what to do [22].
3. I used to try to be cool. I said things that I didn't believe about other people, and celebrities, and myself; I wrote mean jokes for cheap, "edgy" laughs; I neglected good friendships for shallow ones; I insisted I wasn't a feminist; I nodded along with casual misogyny in hopes that shitty dudes would like me [85].
What do you think of these? What were your favorite passages? What are your thoughts on Shrill? Let's chat in the comments below.
Let's read through Death Wish by the 25th.
