Title: The Witches Are Coming Pdf
Esquire, Most Anticipated Books of 2019
Library Journal, Editors' Fall Picks for 2019
This is a witch hunt. We're witches, and we're hunting you.
From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: This is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author of the New York Times best-selling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series Shrill Lindy West turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine. You've got one.
In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging listeners to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the 21st century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics-and that delivered us to this precarious, disorienting moment in history.
West writes, "We were just a hair's breadth from electing America's first female president to succeed America's first black president. We weren't done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form-like the Balrog's whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, 'If I can't have you, no one can' - white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House."
We cannot understand how we got here - how the land of the free became Trump's America - without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact-checking the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.
Catnip for feminists! The Witches Are Coming is straight-up feminist / liberal candy. She’s not going to change anybody’s minds with this book — she’s definitely going to be preaching to the choir — but members of that choir are going to eat. it. up. (As did I.)The book is made up of essays that offer commentary on today’s political and social climates. There’s an entire chapter called, “Is Adam Sandler Funny?” (Spoiler alert: No.)I honestly think that if you’re going to read this book, you should go for the audiobook. I didn’t listen to it myself (because I received an advanced e-copy of the print edition), but you can just tell. Lindy is hilarious (of course), and her delivery of these passionate essays is sure to be spot-on. I did actually listen to her first book, Shrill, and loved her delivery in that one.So, long story short: If you like the idea of a liberal feminist comedian writing a liberal, feminist, funny book, then this one is absolutely for you.The witches are here asking for equal and fair treatment. Having never read Lindy West before I wasn’t sure what I was in for, Shrill has been on my tbr list forever. I decided to start here and go into this with fresh eyes and it was great. I love how she takes something small and makes huge important points out of them like love of Adam Sandler and playing video games. I loved her breakdown of twitter and what it’s like being a fat woman on the Internet at any time. I really enjoyed reading this!So much respect for Lindy West; just wish it was a little less predictable I was reading a fiction craft book recently and it talked about the need to make one's work unpredictable. The book suggested that you think of everything that people would expect your characters to do, and then subvert expectations.That doesn't happen in this book. But before I get to the criticism, I want to start with the respect.So. Much. Respect. I read Ms West's first book, Shrill, and I found her to have this incredible resiliency that I found just staggering. She was one of the early voices of fat women feminists, and the amount of hate she has had to absorb is just...it's honestly devastating even to read about. But in the face of all that unending assault, she doubles down; she claims her rights and her agency without apology, and she's FUNNY about it. I loved Shrill, and I have read Ms. West constantly since then, in the New York Times and elsewhere (I haven't watched her Hulu series yet BUT I WILL); and I pre-ordered this book.And this book was exactly what you would expect. So why was it disappointing, almost?Well, I guess, BECAUSE it was exactly what you would expect. Trolls? Still out there, still terrible. Trump? Yes, absolutely horrifying. Climate change? Likely to kill us all. Discrimination against women, especially women of color? Yes, it's awful.In other words: everything is terrible.Okay. I mean, it's hard to disagree with that, but also: I can get that any time I open up my twitter feed. (Which is why I don't). Lindy is funnier than almost anyone else, and I pretty much always agree with her, but what is she ADDING to the debate here? What is she saying that she didn't say years ago in Shrill, or that hasn't been said every day since then by every progressive person who is paying attention? Maybe she says it better than most, but is that enough? I'm not sure.I mean, at this moment in time, I don't need more reasons to be depressed and angry. I kind of need some reasons not to be.Which brings me to the best part of the book: the last chapter, when Lindy's daughter takes center stage. She informs her parents, casually, that she's made a mural about the Black Panthers that is being unveiled downtown, and she's going to read a poem she wrote. And in that essay, Lindy notes the hope that comes from her daughter and her daughter's peers, from the Stoneman Douglass kids who passed 18 gun laws after their school shooting; she makes a passing reference to the technology that might save the planet.Then her daughter reads her poem about how she and her generation are going to save the world, and I highlighted that poem, and reread it several times.HOPE! Thank you, HOPE!! But why did I have to read 200 pages of the same old horror show to get there?Another point made in the fiction craft book was to inject your story with hope all the way through; not to make people wait in desperation and depression until the very end.I wish this book had STARTED with the last chapter, or at least gotten there earlier, and had then shown us more about how to hope, what we're fighting for, and why we fight.Maybe next time. Because speaking at least for myself, that's what I need. I'm on board with how horrible things are. Now let's talk about how we're going to fix it, and why we believe we can. Because otherwise what are we reading for?
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