From Powells.com
Staff recommendations, guest essays, and curated reading lists.
Staff Pick
This book is a well-crafted mix of humor and logic. The essays vary from personal topics to academic concepts. The overall reading experience is both fun and informative, and what struck me most was how the author illustrates how feminism doesn't have to be perfect to be beneficial. Recommended By Junix S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Blunt and funny….[Gay acknowledges] 'I am a mass of contradictions.' For Gay, though, these contradictions are less a condition to be remedied than a source of greater strength." Washington Post
Review
"A trenchant collection….Whatever her topic, Gay's provocative essays stand out for their bravery, wit, and emotional honesty." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"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?
Review
"Entertaining and enlightening….Bad Feminist is an outtake of her wisdom, and we would all do well to take heed." Bitch Magazine
About the Author
Roxane Gay is the author of the essay collection Bad Feminist, which was a New York Times bestseller; the novel An Untamed State, a finalist for the Dayton Peace Prize; the memoir Hunger, which was a New York Times bestseller and received a National Book Critics Circle citation; and the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti. A contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, she has also written for Time, McSweeney's, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Bookforum, and Salon. Her fiction has also been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2012, The Best American Mystery Stories 2014, and other anthologies. She is the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She lives in Lafayette, Indiana, and sometimes Los Angeles.