Review: Sex Object by Jessica Valenti

Sex Object by Jessica Valenti
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm really struggling with rating this one - I wanted to love it and give it 5 stars. And yet, it didn't quite meet my expectations so I'm giving the entire thing a 3 star but some of the content deserves something closer to 5 stars.

Jessica Valenti put to words a great deal of the things that women in general can relate to and have frankly experienced. She spoke to me in so many ways. She doesn't downplay the crude and disgusting experiences that we experience as women every day. She tells the truth. She puts words to the experiences we've all had. It isn't always easy to read her very direct and focused exploration of sexism and misogyny. For that alone, this book needs to be read. Despite how uncomfortable it might be. Despite how hard to read it is.

The thing that didn't work as well for me was that some of the content didn't work for me. It fell flat in a way. I just didn't connect to it in the way I did other content. Each of the essays didn't seem to add up into one cohesive book for me. But, that doesn't make the impact of the impactful essays go away. It just means the essays individually were more impactful to me but the entirety of the work didn't work quite as well for me.

However, I DEFINITELY recommend this and hope you will read it despite it's faults. I think it gives the reader a critical look at something we all need to better understand.