It’s weird rating a book whose viewpoints so closely align with my own so low, but I kind of have to. It amounts to a lot of glib “can you believe this shit?!” recitation of facts that a) won’t convert any skeptics or b) surprise any believers. I’d like to think that some of it is due to the times a’changing, but really the main changes in the 15 or so years since the publication date are that gay marriage is legal and that women have gained another nine cents for every dollar made by men. Progress!
Anyway, Valenti is I hope writing for high school or college age women, but it’s hard to tell how much she’s talking down to her reader versus how much times have changed. In any case, it’s slightly painful to read. I’m with you, but a laundry list of crimes against feminism without solutions or in depth analysis just reads like a blog post.
I feel like I can’t rate this as low as I would if this were a book on literally anything else, but this was a rough read and I’d really like to take that as a sign that we’ve come so far since it was written but I doubt if.