Bad Feminist by Roxane GayBook Review

Hi everyone I'm Rincey and this is Rincey
Reads. Today I'm going to be doing a review on "Bad
Feminist" by Roxane Gay. This is a collection of essays and it clearly
talks about feminism. But it also just talks about gender and politics and race and pop
culture and just a whole wide range of things which is everything that I love in an essay
collection.

My favorite kind of essay collections are
the ones that basically touch a lot on pop culture. And Roxane Gay is just so in tune
with modern pop culture. Or not even just modern pop culture, but just generally. Like
she knows so much about everything, it's insane to me how smart she is.
The essay collection are split up into four parts.

I believe the first one is all about
just like personal essays about Roxane Gay. The second part is about gender. The third
part is about like race and politics, I believe. And then there's a separate section about
the entertainment industry and things like that.
So you can kind of like read these in groups and get like a fuller picture about the things
that she is talking about.

She makes a lot of references, like I mentioned
earlier, but you don't necessarily need to know all of the references in order to understand
what she is talking about. She tend to do a pretty good job of explaining
things that happen in like movies and TV shows so that way you can understand what she's
talking about, so if you haven't actually seen it yourself you won't be like missing
out or completely lost on her points and her topics.
But I will say that the essays that I connected with the most are the ones that I actually
understood the topics and the ideas she was touching on. Being aware of the news items
that she's talking about, and being aware of the TV shows she is talking about, things
like that. They all help to enhance the experience, I believe.
So I feel like, not necessarily that you're going to be hindered if you don't know it,
but I feel like, the more that you know the more that you'll enjoy this.
I really, really enjoyed this essay collection, but one thing I do want to say is that I enjoyed
this without necessarily agreeing with it.

I feel like with a title like Bad Feminist
or even just talking about feminism in general, there is sort of a divisiveness that comes
with this topic or just comes to the idea of equality, race relations, gender relations,
all of these different things. And people tend to just pick their side and stick to
it. And I feel like I'm someone who enjoys listening to both sides of the conversation.
And so, essay collections like this really appeal to me because I like it when I read
about things that I don't necessarily agree with because I feel like you have to understand
both sides in order to understand where you fall within it. Because if you just make assumptions
or if you just only listen to people who are similar to you, you're not really getting
a full picture and your belief system, I feel like, is slightly flawed.
I feel like essay collections like this that have a very strong point of view or have very
specific ideas are really good for everyone across the spectrum to read because, even
if you don't necessarily agree with the things Roxane Gay is talking about, the topics that
she brings up are very topics.

I probably could have phrased that better, but whatever.
And the ideas that she talks about are very much things that are prevalent in today's
society that I think that no matter what side of the spectrum you fall on, you should be
aware of them and then decide where you stand on the issue.
Like this is a book that I've already been recommending to people I know in real life
because I think that this would be a really interesting essay collection to talk about
with other people. There's certain essays in here where Roxane Gay makes arguments and
it's really interesting reading them because you can see, or at least I feel like I can
see, some of the flaws in her arguments. But then at the same time, she sort of talks about
how feminism isn't about being perfect and having perfect ideals. The idea behind a bad
feminist is the fact that we're all going to mess up, even if we call ourselves feminists.
There are ways in which every feminist fails at being a "feminist." There are things that
we like, things that we enjoy that probably other people would frown upon.

And it's like,
if you call yourself a feminist, how can you like those things?
And I think that is a really interesting concept to just explore and just see how you compare
to the things Roxane Gay talks about. One thing I will say about this essay collection
is that it can at times feel a little bit repetitive. The way I read this is that I
read this along with reading other books. So I would just read a couple essays at a
time and then put it down and read something else.

I feel like if you read this straight
through it would be not as enjoyable because by the end of the book you would get a little
bit worn out. And I feel like that's true for most essay collections and most short
story collections. A lot of times, at least for me personally,
short story collections and essay collections, can't be just read in one sitting. For me,
I like to break them up with other stories because the themes and the ideas can feel
a bit much personally.

In the end I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars
on Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book and I feel like the main reason why I enjoyed
this book is because it made me think. Again, I'm not going to say that I am 100% on board
with everything that Roxane Gay has to say. For example, one essay collection that's in
here talks about the idea of unlikeable characters.

And it's really interesting because I was
reading this, and in another essay she talks about Sweet Valley High and the Sweet Valley
series and how she is more of a Jessica rather than an Elizabeth. And I feel like Jessica
is a rather unlikeable character and so while she was writing her essay collection about
unlikeable characters all I could keep think was, "do you just like unlikeable characters
because you feel like you connect with them more, the same way I might like likeable characters
because I like connecting with them more?" So that's just an idea that I had that I was
thinking about when I was reading that and just an example of how you can enjoy essay
collections without necessarily being like "yes, I 100% agree with all of the things
you are saying." I feel like you can enjoy this no matter where your belief system lies
because the writing is so good and the topics are so interesting, at least for me personally.
Or maybe it's just because I agreed with more than half of the collection that I found it
enjoyable. I'm not really sure. But again I feel like because I didn't necessarily agree
with everything I ended up liking it more than if I did necessarily agree with everything
that she had to say.

So yeah, those are my quick thoughts on Bad
Feminist by Roxane Gay. If you've read this, and I know a couple of you have already, feel
free to leave a comment down below letting me know what you thought of it.
Also let me know like what essays in this collection really stuck out to you or which
ones really resonated with you. So yeah, that's all I have for now and thanks
for watching..