Notes from a Loud Woman
In my never-ending quest to find a fun audiobook to listen to before bed, I stumbled upon Shrill and was immediately intrigued. I remembered picking it up at the store months ago and it sounding interesting so I figured I’d give it a shot!
Synopsis
Coming of age in a culture that demands women be as small, quiet, and compliant as possible – like a porcelain dove that will also have sex with you – bestselling author and humorist Lindy West quickly discovered she was anything but.
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 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.
Review
I love a good sociology essay collection and Lindy’s is up there with Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me. While I found some of the essays difficult to relate to from her perspective, a decent number of the essays have to do with body type and stereotypes, but they certainly made me think about my preconceived notions about people who are different than me, in terms of body type. People who are, as Lindy says, Fat, face a whole different and unique set of challenges in navigating everyday life, along with the stigma and dirty glances from other humans which I had never really noticed before.
While thinking differently about my inherent biases is my primary take away from Lindy’s book, there were certainly essays that reminded me that we really are just human beings, looking for love and respect from everyone. The essay about dealing with trolls is one I could relate to – I’ve been trolled online for having asthma, as well as the pair of essays, “The End” and “The Beginning.”
Lindy’s father died of cancer. And if you’ve ever had to watch a loved one die slowly from a disease or illness that medical science could no longer treat, you’ll recognize the optimism, fear, grief, all the feelings that are associated with the sense of loss, that Lindy describes. Those two essays resonated with me the most, and I highly recommend picking up this collection if you want a laugh, a cry, and all the emotions in between.
Rating: 7 out of 10 stars
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