Tag: feminist book reviews

READING WHILE FEMINIST

Jo and Laurie’s unpopular ending was Louisa May Alcott’s best move

This month, I finally got around to reading Little Women, after somehow managing to avoid it for 24 years. And—well, I had pretty mixed feelings, to be honest. I loved reading it (I mean, it opens on a Christmas scene; it’s like it was written specially for me), and I got really attached to the characters—but I found the messages pretty hard to get on board with. I just wanted to read about Jo’s adventures without Louisa May Alcott preaching at me all the time. However, after doing a bit of digging into the life of Alcott herself, I may have come full circle.

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READING WHILE FEMINIST

How to start a revolution from your bedroom

Being a feminist (which I hope you all are now after my post on why you should be) can be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. Some days I feel like punching the air in triumph—and other days I feel like crying in my bedroom in despair. Two days ago, I went to see Suffragette and had the latter response—but I also read a book this month that gave me the former. Just to keep you on your toes, I’m going to tell you about both.

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READING WHILE FEMINIST

So what exactly did gender-swapping ‘Twilight’ achieve?

When Twilight first came out, and captured the hearts of teenage girls across the world, I flat-out refused to read it. I mean, it was a story about vampires—and I was trying to be one of the cool kids at school. My friends had to literally hold me down and dangle the book in front of my face before I deigned to read a word of it. (Of course, I then got totally hooked on it, read all four, and attended midnight screenings of the movies wearing a “Team Jacob: the Cullens don’t come here” t-shirt—but if you tell anybody that, I’ll have to kill you.) So trust me, I had zero interest in buying the 10th anniversary edition. That is, until Stephenie Meyer surprised us all by announcing that this time… the vampire was the girl.

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READING WHILE FEMINIST

Louise O’Neill is speaking and we all need to listen

At 4:30 yesterday afternoon, I began reading Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It. I finished it at 11:59 that same night. Completely drained, I felt like bursting into tears of rage and helplessness. For the entire evening (with a short break to watch Forrest Gump with my family, which didn’t help with the whole wanting-to-cry thing) I had been immersed in the harrowing story of a teenage gang-rape victim. And yet, although I was thoroughly exhausted, all I wanted to do was get started straight away on O’Neill’s other novel Only Ever Yours. Because what Louise O’Neill has to say is that important. What O’Neill has to say can’t wait until morning.

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READING WHILE FEMINIST

4 reasons ‘Matilda’ isn’t as feminist as you think

Daring to diss Matilda is about as terrifying as criticising Beyonce or One Direction; either move puts you at risk of being attacked by an army of full grown women who wouldn’t hesitate to rip off your face. So it is with serious hesitation that I’m writing this: I think Matilda is just a little bit…horribly sexist.

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