My Reading List for "No One Loves An Angry Woman"
The first 30 books I've read while thinking about my own
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No One Loves An Angry Woman feels like the book I’ve been waiting my whole life to write. I get to write in my favorite form - personal essays layered with cultural critique - to reveal the myriad ways Christian culture informs the patriarchal expectations that harm us all (but especially women, since that is the experience I can personally speak to). I write about the tactics used to keep us small, silent, separated, unsure of ourselves, striving towards impossible standards, and full of shame. It’s a story woven through with rage and grief, curiosity and empathy.
I know I am going to come out the other side of writing this book and never be the same again. Not only am I publicly reckoning with trauma that I kept carefully hidden for decades, but I’m also confronting the systems that created the perfect shame storm to keep me quiet and compliant. (As I told an old coworker today, it’s going to garner me a lot of hate mail. That’s how you know it’s worthwhile.)
I do not think I would be brave enough to write this book if it weren’t for the vulnerability and wealth of knowledge brought forth by the writers who have lit my way. These are the first 30 books I have been reading (or re-reading) as I weave together the narrative of No One Loves An Angry Woman. I owe each and every writer on this list a debt I can never repay for their words and their wisdom.
Every book listed here is a wholehearted recommendation which I have read in its entirety (with many margin notes!). So, if you want more info on a particular one - let me know in the comments! I am happy to wax poetic about each and every one of these titles. In fact, you’ll have trouble getting me to shut up about them.
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