Monday, April 17, 2017

Book Review: Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

TITLE: Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
AUTHOR: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
PUBLISHED: March 7th, 2017
CATEGORY: Non-Fiction
GENRE: Essay/Feminism
PREMISE: Author/activist Adichie goes into her ideas of feminism in a letter to her friend.
MY REVIEW: A couple of weeks ago, my review of this might have been very different. What happened a couple of weeks ago, you ask? Well, Adichie gave an interview where somehow trans issues came up and she said some pretty transphobic things. There have been more detailed articles about it. This review of the same book goes a bit into what happened.
 I'm conflicted about how to approach this because while I definitely sigh at yet another feminist saying transphobic things (even if it is perhaps said in ignorance, which...I really hope is the case here). I also don't want to suddenly discount all the things she says about issues that she is informed about, such as race/gender etc.
This has clouded my reading of this somewhat and I will freely admit that. There are parts in here I liked and parts in here that...I just kept thinking about those comments in the back of my head and they really contradicted some of this book. So yeah...lots of mixed feelings. I do think I will still read Adichie...I just am going to probably be much more critical of her stuff now then I might have been before.
WHO SHOULD READ: Feminists, fans of We Should All Be Feminists
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five conflicted feelings

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