nasty women review

It feels like ages since I wrote a book review! I am very happy that I’m getting back on track with 404 Ink’s Nasty Women.

With intolerance and inequality increasingly normalised by the day, it’s more important than ever for women to share their experiences. We must hold the truth to account in the midst of sensationalism and international political turmoil. Nasty Women is a collection of essays, interviews and accounts on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century.

People, politics, pressure, punk – From working class experience to racial divides in Trump’s America, being a child of immigrants, to sexual assault, Brexit, pregnancy, contraception, identity, family, finding a voice online, role models and more, Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, Zeba Talkhani, Chitra Ramaswamy are just a few of the incredible women who share their experience here.

Keep telling your stories, and tell them loud.

I was so incredibly excited to finally get around to Nasty Women – it is definitely one of my most anticipated books of this year, especially after Margaret Atwood gave it a brilliant review. It is also one of the books I most wanted to read in April for Aimal’s A Very ARC-ish Readathon – I’m pretty pleased that I’ve read my first book on that list so quickly.

For some reason, I thought that Nasty Women was entirely written by Americans – however, there are essays from people all over the world! This was quite a pleasant surprise. This is definitely an anthology with something for everyone. It is marvellously intersectional, with essays written by queer women, women of colour, trans women, Muslim women…the list goes on. It talks frankly and in many different ways about race, sexism, sexual violence, politics – and how all of these things often go hand-in-hand. Some of the essays pose the question of who is really a ‘nasty woman’, and wonder how exactly you can become one.

Like with all anthologies, there were some essays I agreed with more than others, and some that I found more engaging than others. But that, for me, is one of the strengths of anthologies as a genre. If I didn’t love an essay, I’d just go on to the next one. I would highly recommend picking up Nasty Women, if you haven’t already. In a moment such as this, it is so important for anthologies to showcase the voices of revolutionary women who continue to fight, despite all other setbacks.

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