2026 #13 The Guilty Feminist (Frances-White)

 

The Guilty Feminist: You Don't Have to Be Perfect to Overthrow the Patriarchy by Deborah Frances-White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm going to start with one ofthe drawbacks (for me -- specifically in regard to the audiobook), as much of the book is really great. I'm not sure, but many of the "interviews" seemed to be read (rather than the recorded originals), with Adjoa Andoh acting as the guest (?), but it was honestly hard to tell, and the credits on Audible are no help. Regardless if it is the actual guests reading their answers or not, it seemed rather artificial and I missed the organic quality of an interview. That aside...

I was not aware of Frances-White's podcast when I bought this book on Audible, so I came in with few expectations beyond liking the premise of "I'm a feminist, but..." One thing the author really drives home is how WOMEN can be so damn judgmental of each other and she decries the gatekeeping that happens in the name of "feminism." I appreciated that Frances-White seems to recognize that feminism is a broad term that can encompass a wide range of CHOICES (and that having the autonomy and agency to exercise those choices is REALLY the point).

Raised as a Jehovah's Witness, and now a comedian and podcaster, Frances-White comes at this topic with the exact lack of apology and forthrightness that needs to be there. She does love a metaphor, to be sure, but growing up as she did, I think driving a point home became an ingrained practice--sadly I'm sure much of it was internal for a good long time. Her ultimate goal seems to be to unite the different "sub-genres" of feminism against patriarchy, and I think that's a noble endeavor.

I'd quibble with some things, and what I'll say is that she seems to welcome dissent and argument. For her, women SHOULD disagree with each other (respectfully) but not to the point where our infighting undermines the larger goals. I felt there was a strong bias toward women being sexually repressed as a result of the patriarchy, and very little acknowledgment that some women may just not want sex, and might engage with it purely to share something with a beloved partner. There was also a subtext sometimes that "real" feminists behave badly, and I don't necessarily subscribe to that, but I certainly appreciated her points about how often women can sugarcoat their own anger because we are beholden to the social conditioning of being nurturers. I don't think shock value is always the right method, particularly if you carry white privilege-- it often comes at the expense of taking space AWAY from intersectional voices. Frances-White makes a concerted effort to be intersectional and that is a strength of the book -- particularly useful for white women who consider themselves feminists but travel exclusively in white packs of feminists or use various facets of their identity to play the "oppressed Olympics."

Sometimes the audio from the podcast where she mouths off on a particular topic made me feel a bit cynical. Delivering a speech on stage for a podcast where the audience is primarily full of fans is not quite the same as testifying before Parliament and some of these moments felt a bit self-congratulatory.

On accessibility. The interview with Becca (someone --- I wish she would have mentioned who the interviews were with at the end as well), made an excellent point about competing access needs, and that it is important to just be transparent about what your event is doing to be more accessible and try to mix it up so that you are moderately accessible to as diverse a crowd as possible. That seemed like really great advice and useful for those who instead throw up their hands in the face of "can't please all of the people all of the time" and end up choosing the status quo rather than even trying.

Reframing saying "yes to the dress" fell a bit flat for me, but in the same vein as the idea that being a b*itch is validated in the name of feminism (I'm overstating her point a bit here, I realize). Her point that some women become bridezillas because it is the only time of their lives that they are in complete control of everything didn't resonate...I think it is also a huge privilege and if you are going to be sh*tty to people when you are a bride, it just makes you sh*tty, feminist or not.

Her feminist readings of films (so-called "chick flicks"/rom-coms)? Dirty Dancing worked for me--it was a fairly compelling argument, and something of which I was probably semi-aware when I saw it as a young teenager. Pretty Woman on the other hand...Frances-White does acknowledge that it is still problematic and I get that her larger point is that rom-coms often center female autonomy within the context of whatever class level that is present. But as someone who often doesn't enjoy rom-coms, I guess I feel a reframing or re-contextualizing isn't necessary (but importantly, nor is an apology).

In other ways, however, her nuanced parsing of rude cat calling versus genuine complimenting was appreciated. Where it is difficult is that the metric is different for every woman: one person's compliment is another person's harassment.

Essentially, she really trying to message that women have choices and can make choices, and that the fighting among us is really underserving us, and can be as pernicious as the patriarchy. Having gone to a women's college, I'm particularly sympathetic to this viewpoint, and I wish that the women who could really benefit from hearing what she has to say are going to be the ones to pick up a book called "The Guilty Feminist". I've had fellow feminists, whom I consider friends, tell me I was "losing my identity" when I chose to take my husband's name. I've seen that evidently I am serving the patriarchy by preferring to shave my legs. I had a man YELL AT ME once because I held the door open for him when I sensed that he was following me into a coffee shop. "You shouldn't do that!!" he yelled, failing to grasp the irony of mansplaining to me about the patriarchy.

There are a lot of nuggets of wisdom here and some thoughtful reflection and even when I didn't always agree, I welcomed the space to think about these things. One last bit that I'll close with is a quote: "Hope without a plan of action is the doorway to depression." It is, most definitely, time for a plan of action, and I hope that we can find a way to embrace each other, with all our imperfections, to gather our collective hope and make a bold move.

View all my reviews

2026 #12 The Correspondent (Evans)

 

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did, given that wholly epistolary narratives often bore me. I can see why some people don't love it, but anyone who outright dislikes it might lack a soul (I said what I said). It is a deeply human narrative, cast in the voice (mostly of) Sybil Van Antwerp, a septuagenarian former legal clerk, who writes letters (and the occasional email) unabashedly to everyone from Joan Didion (who responds!), her neighbor Mr. Lübeck, the customer service agent at a DNA genetics site, her lifelong best friend, and more. Sybil has secrets, but not of the Frieda McFadden variety...more of the deeply tragic variety that many more of us carry than we likely know. What makes the book so striking for me is how unsensationalized it is--Sybil runs against the grain in several ways, but she's ultimately very human and relatable. Certainly one might empathize with her innate need for connection, which she expresses (at times stubbornly) through her devotion to letter writing.

There is a semi-predictable (and not really hidden) sub-narrative, and if anything, I found that to be a distraction from amazing exchanges (particularly with Basam and Henry). Some threads get tied up in a nice bow, but some don't, and that's exactly as it should be. When Sybil does finally reveal her secret, for me it was about to WHOM and HOW she revealed it that was the most touching. But again, by the time we got there, I was really much too invested in all the connections she had in various ways to feel too stunned/upset. I guess I felt upset for her and it does help explain a lot.

The end did not make me cry, but the middle did -- on several occasions. And that's a book I love. And it made me want to write a few letters of my own.


View all my reviews

Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals 12/60

Tackle your Physical TBR 2026: no. 8

#192030 Challenge: 2025

2026 #11 A Liturgical Play for the Medieval Feast of Fools: The Laon Ordo Joseph (Lagueux)

 

A Liturgical Play for the Medieval Feast of Fools: The Laon Ordo Joseph by Robert C. Lagueux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: the author is a friend and colleague/boss.

That said, I read this on its own merit (and NOT at the behest of the author), as I am a self-described "medievalist groupie" (in terms of musicological specialty) and I found myself entranced by the detailed contextualization of this medieval drama. Lagueux devotes much needed attention to the "gloss" and how it operates dramaturgically, supported by well-conceived suppositions regarding the performance of the work in Laon. The situation is very nuanced, and he makes a convincing case for multiple levels of Biblical exegesis that play out in the Ordo Joseph. Most fascinating is the symbology and the role reversal of various clerics of the Church in service of enacting social inversion. Unlike the music associated with Florentine Carnival (e.g. canti carnascialeschi), in this context, Lagueux notes, "...inversion does not require mad revelry." (88). His investigation of the Ordo Joseph supports his claim that, "...meaningful inversion can and does occur in the context of an ecclesiastically sanctioned undertaking." (88)

Equally valuable and intriguing is the author's "reconstruction" or after Peter Jeffery, "re-envisioning" of the music, based on thoughtful and detailed consideration of the available chants (in Laon 263, many for Epiphany) that would work for the rhythms and rhyme schemes of the text. Lagueux also considers intertextual significance, such as the use of the sequence In sapientia (fol. 131v-132v) which offers a Reader's Digest view (my words) of the life of Christ, reflecting both the commemoration of Epiphany as celebrated in the Middle Ages, as well as dialoguing with christological connections in the story of Joseph.

View all my reviews

Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals 11/60

Tackle your Physical TBR 2026: no.7

2026 #10 One of Ours (Cather)

 

One of Ours by Willa Cather
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was once asked why I join different reading challenges, and it is to have opportunities like reading this book. Male protagonist. Coming of age story. Wartime (WWI). The combo of all of these put together would normally put me off, but it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 (thereby checking off two different challenges I've signed on for), and this was my first Willa Cather (and probably won't be my last). When Cather was writing in 1922, it was a mere four years after World War I ended, so for her time it was contemporary fiction (for mine, historical). Claude Wheeler, a young Nebraskan farmer, searches for his identity as a student, as a farmer's son, as a friend, as a husband, as a soldier, and not least as an American. Cather has a gift for making you care about sunsets and wheat fields in the same measure as young men marching off to war because she weaves these things together with intentionality, always teetering on the brink of idealism to remind you it is there, but also with a certain pragmatism to keep us with one foot in reality. The book is harshly beautiful, if I can describe it thus. Cather allegedly ascribed to Claude some aspects of her own personality, along with that of her cousin G.P., who was killed in action during WWI. The result is a protagonist with whom we can sympathize, even when he makes poor decisions (or maybe ESPECIALLY when he does), and for whom we cheer in his idealism and sense of resolve.

The book is not a "war novel" -- the war only makes a real entrance with descriptions of trench warfare and the like toward the end of the book. There are moments where Cather's critique shines through, like when Ernest tells Claude: "You Americans are always looking for something outside yourselves to warm you up, and it is no way to do. In old countries, where not very much can happen to us, we know that, --and we learn to make the most of little things." (88). And other times she zooms out from the story to remind us of the entire Zeitgeist. As news of the war becomes more noted by members of the Wheeler family, Claude's mother goes up to the attic to find a map of Europe -- "a thing for which Nebraska farmers had never had much need."(246). Cather follows this with: "But that night, on many prairie homesteads, the women, American and foreign-born, were hunting for a map." (246). There are so many moments like this.

Cather received criticism (from the likes of Sinclair Lewis and H.L. Mencken) for romanticizing war, and that's perhaps a valid critique. However, with almost a century of hindsight, I read it differently. The romanticization is really about Claude and his idealism (and that of his soldier companions). The emotional distance Cather employs in her descriptions of some of the brutalities of war creates an almost journalistic narrative, and she reserves her emotional energy for moments of human interaction. I don't think Cather is suggesting/advocating war as a solution for youthful searching for purpose, but I think she is suggesting that World War I offered something particular for certain young American men who became disillusioned with what was available on their home turf.


View all my reviews

Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals 10/60

#192030 Challenge: 1922

2026 #9 Rumour of Heaven (Lehmann)

 

Rumour of Heaven by Beatrix Lehmann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Beatrix Lehmann (1903 - 1979) was an English stage actress, well-known in her own right, and sister of novelist Rosamond Lehmann (1901 - 1990). Rumour of Heaven (1934) was Beatrix's second novel, and it initially starts out strong, centering around the Peacock family and its troubled matriarch, former dancer Miranda Mirova. There are many themes to explore here including mental illness and ideas of isolation. We are prepared for a novel about the children--Clare, Hector, and Viola--all of whom survive, but hardly thrive, at the remote country estate known as Prince's Acre. These three characters are fairly vivid, as is Mrs. Humble, the housekeeper. The father flits in and out of the mist.

The middle of the book feels a bit of a misstep. The focus shifts to two (well, three, actually) new strangers who come to Prince's Acre. Gillian Tindall's introduction to the Virago edition notes that Max Ralston is a "Conradian character" and he might have been, but he fizzles out of the narrative, so I suppose in that way he operates as a Kurtz a bit, but I would have liked him to be a bit more present and Paul less so. Once this secondary set of characters enters, things feel a bit off the rails and the ending speeds up with a bit of desperation to tie things together.



View all my reviews

Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals 9/60

Tackle your Physical TBR 2026: no. 6

#192030 Challenge: 1934

2026 #8 Raising Hare (Dalton)

 

Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We can start with the fact that I've never really given a lot of thought to rabbits and hares being distinct animals, although it registered somewhere in the back-burner of my brain. I think I'm probably not alone. Dalton's memoir sets out to change that, at least in passing. When she encounters an abandoned leveret (baby hare), her life is forever changed (and that isn't hyperbole). Yes, it is a story of one woman and and at least at first, one hare. But it is also a very thoughtful meditation on the fragile ecosystem and how humans must struggle to maintain some sort of precarious equilibrium, as the balance was long ago upset. Dalton is transparent about her struggles and her questions (of herself, of the relatively isolated world of hare-related knowledge, of her little furry friend(?)). It is this questioning that keeps things from falling into the trap of an overly saccharine and anthropomorphized tale. She reels us in with her narrative in such a way that we find ourselves holding our breath as she writes of circling hawks and various other garden predators, any of whom would like a lunch of leveret. She introduces us to previous chronicles offered by hunters, poachers, and poets alike, who offer musings and (mis)characterizations of these enigmatic animals. Dalton seems conscious of adding her voice to the small trove of information so that sometime in the future, another leveret-encounterer might turn to her memoir for assistance.

The hare is never named and this is ultimately an act of respect, but, also, one suspects, an act of self-preservation. While Dalton works hard not to domesticate the animal, there is something else -- some undefined opportunity to commune (sort of) with another species. I picked this up in the airport because I had heard about it and I wanted something short enough to finish over the course of two shorter flights. I might not have gotten around to it otherwise, so I'll thank not only the airport bookstore, but also Denise Nestor's gorgeous illustration on the front cover (and those that are included inside the book as well). It is truly a delightful and tender read.

View all my reviews

2026 #7 Body and Soul (Conroy)

 

Body and Soul by Frank Conroy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Honestly, really a 4.5, largely based on the ending. Conroy didn't go for the cliché, and that was so refreshing. The book is beautiful on so many fronts, and there are so many opportunities to be maudlin, but Conroy takes the road less traveled (most of the time). The relationship between Claude and Weisfeld is likely one of my favorite relationships in all of literature.

There are a few times where it gets in the weeds with musical description (and I say this as a musicologist) that seemed to be trying too hard, but on the whole the musical journey seemed very relatable and even inspiring. Not everyone is a Claude, of course, who we understand to be a prodigy, but Conroy shapes his character enough we are intrigued in how he has to navigate his world (and the world at large).

After a slow-ish start, that seemed like it was going the route of the tried and true inspirational tale of the talent who comes from tough circumstances, things get considerably more interesting as Claude experiences loss and disappointment (unconnected to his music and performing), and some of the secondary characters actually develop as well. Really a joy to have read it.


View all my reviews

Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals 7/60

Tackle your Physical TBR 2026: no. 5