Bad Feminist Roxane Gay

Rating: WARTY!

This was an audiobook I requested after becoming interested in the author from my reading of World of Wakanda by Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The problem is that unlike the graphic novel, which I loved, this book was self-obsessed and boring.

Let's get one thing clarified right up front: it has nothing whatsoever to do with any brand of feminism, good, bad, or indifferent (and however you might foolishly try to define those!), so the title is completely wrong and disgustingly bait and switch. This is evidently one of those books where the author puts together a collection of essays and takes the title of the collection from one of its constituents. I always have a problem with that precisely because it is too often misleading.

In this case it was especially misleading because this is far more 'Bad Memoir' (assuming there are really good ones, which I confess I sometimes doubt) than ever it is anything else. The essays are just god-awfully rambling, self-serving recollections from her life, and not even ones that offer anything new, or insightful, or any great wisdom. I'm neither black nor gay and this book revealed nothing to me about either quality which told me anything I had not heard or read before, or thought of myself. So what was the point?

After listening to some essays and skimming some others, I quit this and went to look at some reviews to see if it was just me who felt this way about it, and no, it wasn't. Others had come independently to the same conclusion, and this is where I discovered that there's barely a thing in here about feminism. So maybe after all, the title is right and it's bad feminist because it contains so little about the topic in the title? Maybe? LGBTQED?

Anyway after reading those reviews, I felt no compulsion whatsoever to go back in here and listen to any more. All I can say is that I'm disappointed, sadly disappointed, and I cannot recommend this, especially since I'm unwilling to commend it in the first place!

World of Wakanda by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alitha E Martinez, Roberto Poggi

Rating: WORTHY!

Is it just me, or did anyone else find it rather amusing that a writer named Gay tells a story here of a lesbian couple? Okay, just me then! Sorry! But Roxane Gay is bisexual for clarification and she was the lead writer here with Coates. This was a graphic novel and I was quite taken by it. The art (Martinez, Poggi) was glorious and the story was engaging and inspiring. It tells of earlier days of Dora Milaje than those depicted in the monumentally successful movie - days when Ayo is newly arrived in the guard and undergoing training. She and her trainer, Aneka, fall for each other and have to fight their confusion as well as each other when training.

Full disclosure: I was in love with Ayo before Aneka was! Not that it will do me any good, but after I saw that scene in Captain America: Civil War in which she says - to Black Widow of all people! - "Move or you will be moved" I was solid gone and wanted to see more of her. She had little to do in Black Panther unfortunately and less to do in Avengers: Infinity Wars, but at least I get to see her in this comic!

This story tells of the two's transition from Dora Milaje to their current comic persona as vigilantes known as Midnight Angels. Gay and Yona Harvey, who wrote a short story depicted in the back of this volume, are the first two black women to write a series for Marvel. Sadly the series was cancelled, so as far as I know, this is all there is. It's well worth a look.