[Ruden is] a blistering polemicist on the issue of reproductive rights, a talent she may never have realized if it weren’t for the steamrolling of those rights in our current political moment ... An unusual book; it’s a brisk and bracing work of cultural history fueled by Ruden’s righteous indignation and filigreed with her witty literary criticism ... This uncompromising rhetorical style — barbed, withering, gently (and sometimes not so gently) mocking — is bound to turn off some readers. Not to mention that her book is unlikely to convert anyone who doesn’t already agree with her positions. Ruden is unwilling to write about abortion in dulcet tones ... But then Ruden points out that anti-abortion activists have long understood the power of drawing in an audience and making it feel as if it were 'part of the great drama.'
