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The Witches Are Coming

The Witches Are ComingThe Witches Are Coming By Lindy West

Source Purchased

Published by Hachette Books on November 5, 2019

Rating: four-stars

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 bestselling 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 readers 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 twenty-first 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, β€œWe 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 formβ€”like the Balrog’s whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, β€˜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 Americaβ€”without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without factβ€”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.

This essay collection was so good. For the most part, the essays were engaging, inspiring, infuriating, clever, and really funny. I laughed out loud so much while I was reading this!

Lindy West writes about topics that can make me really frustrated and angry, but she does it here in a way that, rather than making me feel overwhelmed or helpless, makes me feel like someone else understands and can put it into just the right words.

There was nothing particularly challenging in this collection, and it was definitely a lighter read than other non-fiction books I’ve read this year that tackle some of the same subjects. So if you want to read something that talks about the time we’re in and encapsulates some of the rage and frustration you might be feeling, and that can make you laugh about it, you should check this out.

four-stars

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