PositiveThe Rumpus\"A #WhyIDidntReport post by a woman from my hometown, Carrollton, Texas, bowled me over. A bright, religious girl—the kind that plays Belle in the school musical, and did—described being so distraught by her assault at sixteen that she didn’t tell a single person, and immediately threw her clothes away in an alley dumpster. She described thinking that’s what sex was, and not even knowing—like many—that it was assault at the time. I knew her well when we were sixteen. I gave her rides. I probably drove past that dumpster a hundred times, and I had no idea. Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, takes this sickening information, digests it, and shouts through a megaphone what to do with it ... Reading the book, I am encouraged to make our feminist ancestors light up. I want to make them as proud, if not more, as I want to make our feminist grandchildren.
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Maya Dusenbery
RaveThe RumpusAuthor Maya Dusenbery, executive editor of Feministing, brings forth a slew of modern-day proof that suspicion of women by scientists and medical practitioners is still alive. And though today’s sexist diagnoses may not be as outright as the concept of hysteria, misdiagnoses are prominent as ever, diluting the life-ruining effects of chronic pain and fatigue, autoimmune disorders, fibromyalgia, and endometriosis, just to name a few. Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick is a fearless account of the incompetence of our culture when it comes to treating women properly. Dusenbery writes about the institutional systems that are against women—from philosophy to pharmacy to popular culture—in an accessible, engaging, and organized narrative.
Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar
RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksMonster Portraits is a striking addition to this identity quilt, a broad exploration of otherness, especially biracial otherness, and specifically the otherness of Somali Americans in the 1980s ... The Samatars point out the distinction between monster and monstrous, how usually the monstrous happens to the monster ... So rather than being the cause of fear and distress, the monster is usually the victim, and the casualty of discrimination and violence. Monstrous behavior is the result of deprivation: the monster is not someone with lack of potential, but lack of opportunity ... Monster Portraits strikes gold in a genre that is entirely its own.
Sandra Allen
PositiveThe Rumpus...a miraculous paradise... The memoir is a series of stories that explain how Bob arrived to his adulthood. At some points, it is anecdotal, and at others, it seems to be a retaliation against the way society treats the mentally ill, specifically paranoid schizophrenics ...Allen painstakingly pieces together a conversation about Uncle Bob in her own words, through history and research, and through conversations with other family members ... Early in the book, Allen admits she is no expert on schizophrenia, but she is able to execute a chaotic story with intriguing clarity ... Because of the wide array of information and emotion this book includes, it presents the kind of conversation that goes on forever. But among the endless opportunities for discussion, one thing is concrete and that is Uncle Bob’s love for Allen ... The way the book is organized reflects Allen’s experience: the ability to meet a book with skepticism and find much to be admired.
