Title: Shrill
By: Lindy West
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 260
Release Date: May 17th, 2016
Publisher:
Summary from Goodreads:
From a painfully shy childhood in which she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her big body and even bigger opinions; to her public war with stand-up comedians over rape jokes; to her struggle to convince herself, and then the world, that fat people have value; to her accidental activism and never-ending battle royale with Internet trolls, Lindy narrates her life with a blend of humor and pathos that manages to make a trip to the abortion clinic funny and wring tears out of a story about diarrhea.
With inimitable good humor, vulnerability, and boundless charm, Lindy boldly shares how to survive in a world where not all stories are created equal and not all bodies are treated with equal respect, and how to weather hatred, loneliness, harassment, and loss--and walk away laughing. Shrillprovocatively dissects what it means to become self-aware the hard way, to go from wanting to be silent and invisible to earning a living defending the silenced in all caps.
Review: I've read several books by female comedians who have had a hard upbringing. Their stories are usually full of heart ache, but they bring a simple sense of humor to the story that really brings the story to life. Shrill had a story to tell, but the authors delivery was far from humorous. Every chapter felt like the author was complaining. She's a self proclaimed fat girl... and that's all that we hear about. A good book needs to have hope. I want a story about how the author overcame the critics, but the first half of the book was one giant blame game.
It wasn't until the author really dug deep and started to fight the war against comedians poking fun at rape. That was when I really felt like he had something worthwhile to say. If you could skip the first half of the book and just read the parts that really mattered, I would recommend that. I gave the book three stars because half the book was amazing and half was not.
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