I hope you know of Roxane Gay. She is having a moment. She is delightful on Twitter. She rambles and gives advice on Tumblr. She writes essays everywhere, it seems. She is soon to be the Editor-in-chief (proprietor? maintainer-of-awesomeness?) at The Butter, a new vertical of The Toast. She also writes fiction and her recent novel An Untamed State is a NYT Bestseller. I have not read it. I hope to read it soon.

I have read Bad Feminist and I will be reflecting on it for quite awhile. Gay writes powerful, eloquent essays that cover a wide range of subjects. Her voice is empathetic, open, and yet authoritative and impossible to dismiss. She explores the language of sexual violence, the HBO show Girls, the film and book series The Hunger Games, and the various ways that feminism intersects with race, gender, and sexuality. Bad Feminist — as a collection — was eye-opening and I would like to think made me a better thinker and listener.

I can only commend you to obtain and read this book for yourself. There is no praise I can place upon it, nothing I can say about it that will improve upon Gay’s prose. When you read it, I look forward to hearing what stood out to you the most, because there is so much within it that guided and improved my thinking.