Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own - by Kate Bolick

My Rating:

“Whom to marry, and when will it happen—these two questions define every woman’s existence.” 
So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why­ she—along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing—remains unmarried. (Goodreads)

I found Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, without really looking for it. I wanted a new audio book to listen to and I was having a hard time finding anything from Overdrive that didn't have a long hold list. Goodreads had voting open for the Goodreads Choice Awards at the time so I decided to scroll through the lists of nominees. I was intrigued by Spinster and when I found the audiobook download with no hold list, I was sold.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, but I feel like the first half was much stronger than the second. What I liked best about Bolick's writing in this book is how well she mixes memoir with an academic introduction to her five "awakeners" - Neith Boyce, Maeve Brennan, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edith Wharton. The narrative effortlessly switches between accounts of these women's lives and writing and more personal accounts of Bolick's own experiences. I hadn't even heard of most of these women and knew nothing about any of their writings, so I really enjoyed the well-researched information provided in Spinster. I did feel, though, that this information got repetitive as the book went on. I liked the first half of so of the book so much because Bolick was still in the process of introducing these women and I was constantly learning something new and interesting, but once they had been introduced I feel like a lot of the same arguments, quotes, life stories, etc. were reused later in the book. This was harder to verify with an audio book, but I know there were times where I could have sworn a phrase or quote was repeated word for word, with no new analysis to warrant the repetition.

As far as Bolick's exploration of spinsterhood, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, Bolick is not exactly a spinster and she freely admits that she can hardly walk down the street without arranging a date. Her spinster role models are, for the most part, not spinsters either. On the other hand, I liked Bolick's attempt to redefine the entire meaning of "spinster" and this made me somewhat more convinced about the inclusion of both the author and the women she writes about into the world of spinsterhood. Spinster does not necessarily have to mean a woman alone, instead, Bolick proposes spinster as a term for a woman who does not feel dependent upon or forced into relationships with men. In this sense, Bolick definitely seems to qualify as a spinster because I, at least, got the sense that while she enjoys relationships with men, she's not just waiting for someone to come along and marry her.

I think the title could be somewhat misleading if women are looking for a book about actually being single, but overall I think Bolick's premise still makes for an enjoyable read. What I took away from the book, though, was Bolick's courage to make her own life just how she wanted it to be. She wanted to be a writer, so she picked up her things, found an apartment, and became a writer. If she ended up in a job that wasn't right for her, she left. When she felt like she needed to spend some time back her hometown, she picked up her things again and moved back. I always spend too much time overthinking my life decisions and trying to determine what people will think of me if I make a certain decision. It was really refreshing and inspiring to read about someone who seems to be confident in her decisions and is leading a successful life.

If you're looking for a book about actually living as a spinster in the way most people would define the word, this book might not be for you. It's also not especially groundbreaking in terms bringing something new to feminism, which I wasn't expecting, but some people might be. I will admit I was a bit disappointed that in all her discussion of relationships and marriage, Bolick completely left out any commentary on what the societal pressures are for people who identify as LGBTQ. I still enjoyed this book, though, and if you do read Spinster I would definitely suggest taking a look at the "Spinster Kit" that you can download from Bolick's website here. This kit has some of the normal components you would expect from a book kit such as book club resources and reading lists, but also has the added fun of cocktail recipes and paper dolls. 

How to Be a Woman - by Caitlin Moran

My Rating:

I'd seen  How to Be a Woman on my library shelves numerous times and thought about picking up, but I actually ended up reading How to Build a Girl First. I loved Moran's novel so much that it finally convinced to pick up this book. I listened to the audio book, which is read by Caitlin Moran herself and I'm really glad I finally got around to reading How to Be a Woman.

What I like best about this book is the very informal tone. Especially with the audio, it feels like Moran is just chatting to you about her life and thoughts. While it doesn't come across as any sort of academic endeavor, I found this book to be much better organized than other memoirs or books of essays I've read. Moran starts each chapter with some of her childhood history, often including entries from her journal, and moves into how this shaped her idea of feminism and what it means to be a woman. In the second half or so of each chapter, she shares her thoughts on whatever topics her childhood reminiscing has brought her to whether that's something more serious like abortion, or less serious like her attempts to buy fashionable shoes. While I like a good, academic analysis of feminist issues as much as the next person (and probably more than a good number of people), I loved How to Be a Woman precisely because it is not that. If I want a serious book of essays on serious issues, I'll go pick up something else. This book, though, was absolutely hilarious.

I also noticed, when looking through reviews on Goodreads, that a lot of people took issue with this book for the reasons that I loved it. Many of Moran's comments are insensitive and not at all politically correct. I saw a lot of people calling her out for making racist comments or using the word "retard" and this definitely happened in the book. I disagree, though, that this book is, as some people claim, full of hate speech. I didn't get the sense that Moran wrote this book to preach hate for anyone. Maybe she has what some people consider to be poor taste in jokes, but I think a lot of the negative comments stem from the recent movement I've noticed towards not offending anyone ever. It's the same with all the negativity I've seen towards university professors who are offending students that seem to be getting progressively more sensitive. If these people are actually trying to kindle hatred towards others, that's one thing, but if they're making jokes that you don't like, that's entirely different in my opinion.

I was actually surprised to see these complaints that accuse Moran of ranting or claiming that this really a memoir masquerading as critical analysis. I have to ask myself if any of these people read the description of the book before picking it up, or at least before reviewing. The blurb from Moran's own website says:

"It's a good time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727.

However, a few nagging questions do remain...Why are we supposed to get Brazilians?

Should we use Botox? Do men secretly hate us? And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby?

Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin answers the questions that every modern woman is asking."

So Moran is not, as many of the reviews I read claimed, trying to present this book as critical analysis. It is literally described as "part memoir, part rant", which is fine if that's not what you want to read, but then there's really no reason to complain about the book actually being a memoir or rant, because that's exactly what it claims to be. So congratulations to the reviewers who seemed very proud of themselves for discovering the true identity of this book, but I think they could have saved some time if they'd only read the description first. In any case, I loved How to Be a Woman, inappropriate jokes and all, and would highly recommend this book. It's a refreshing break from the more academic books on the subject and, if you have any sense of humor, pretty much guaranteed to make you laugh.

Bad Feminist - by Roxane Gay

My rating: 

Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay, is another book that I had mixed feelings about. I find this much easier to accept with a book of essays, though, because I can look at each essay as it's own work. Some of them, I absolutely loved, some I didn't enjoy at all. I can say, that there weren't any essays I hated, and I enjoyed this book as a whole. I also think some of my disappointment in certain essays was amplified by how well I thought this book started off. The comparison to the parts I loved really made the aspects I didn't like so much stand out more.

Gay starts off with a wonderful introduction explaining her whole concept of a bad feminist. When women are held to such high standards by society in general, even trying to be a feminist seems like a burden. Some people view you as a crazy man-hater and others expect you to be the paragon of the feminist movement, or what Gay calls 'Capital-F Feminism'. Roxane Gay also admits that she was one of those women who looked down on feminists and didn't want to be labeled as such. Until she realized that being a bad feminist is a completely valid option and, as she puts it, better than being no feminist at all. As a bad feminist, Gay admits that she is imperfect and lives a life full of contradictions, but she is still a feminist. This is something I can really relate to, and I think anyone who is interested in gender equality can as well.

The first few essays after the introduction were very solid in my opinion. Gay writes in a very colloquial way that makes this book seem much more personal than a more academic look at feminism. She does a great job of dealing with tough topics like abortion, rape, or her experiences as a woman of color and then turns right around and makes you laugh with a story about competitive Scrabble tournaments. For me, Gay's weakness is in her essays that come off as an analysis of pop culture, either books, movies, TV shows, or anything else. In almost all of the essays of this type, the pacing seemed extremely awkward. I felt like the essay would trudge along with an overly detailed recap of the book / movie / other in question, then rush to some actual analysis at the very end before ending abruptly. I'll admit that my distaste for these essays might also be somewhat personal, as they remind me of some of my own poorly written essays. You know, the kind where you forget you had a paper to write until the night before and don't have time to do much research or reread the work you're critiquing to actually analyze it. Then you hastily write what little analysis you can think of, which is rushed and lacking in detail, and try to make up for it by filling in the rest of the page limit with an extremely repetitive retelling of the basic plot. Or maybe that's just me...

Overall though, Roxane Gay has put together a very enjoyable collection of essays. Bad Feminist is a book of essays, but is also an equal mix of memoir, humor, social commentary, and critical analysis. While I, personally, could do without the critical analysis, I loved everything else about this book. Bad Feminist is a great read for anyone who has any interest in feminism, especially if they don't want to be called a feminist.

This is also my eighth book for the summer reading challenge from summerreadingonline.blogspot.com and I will be using it for the challenge to read a book by an author of color.