Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 6 reviews on
The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In our language, in our stories (many written by men), we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds--who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or not sexy enough--aren't just outside the norm. They're unnatural. Monstrous. But maybe, the traits we've been told make us dangerous and undesirable are actually our greatest strengths.
Through fresh analysis of 11 female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Jess Zimmerman takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides women (and others) to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero: one that looks a lot like a monster, with the agency and power to match.
Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we're told fall outside the bounds of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters--damsels, love interests, and even most heroines--do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. Today, women are becoming increasingly aware of the ways rules and socially constructed expectations have diminished us. After seeing where compliance gets us--harassed, shut out, and ruled by predators--women have never been more ready to become repellent, fearsome, and ravenous.
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ICYM this week’s Ampersand newsletter recommendations! Explore our picks online or in-store. The Daughters of Madurai by Rajasree Variyar The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman Dyscalculia by Camonghe Felix Meet Claudie by Brit Bennett https://t.co/iG5vleTj2K
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Awesome work @j_zimms! Your book "Women and Other Monsters" is featured in BookAuthority's list of best new Folklore books! https://t.co/qETQ2Gt2Au
Penguin Random House is the world's largest English-language trade publisher, bringing books and ideas to college and university classrooms.
WOMEN AND OTHER MONSTERS by @j_zimms is a fresh cultural analysis of 11 female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, that takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. Read more: https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780807055540
"A fresh look at female-coded monsters from mythology offers insight about embracing characteristics that people fear."
--Shelf Awareness
"An engaging parsing that addresses the ways that sexism and misogyny constrain women, a provocative weaving of the personal and the political."
--The Progressive
"Many readers will feel the truth of this book in their bones as Zimmerman dissects the mythologies that still constrain women."
--Christian Science Monitor
"Every one of these essays is muscular and dangerous, with a mouth full of teeth. Women and Other Monsters is sure to become a feminist classic."
--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
"A thoughtful and deeply personal set of meditations on two subjects dear to my heart. Though as I read this, I couldn't help but feel that it had been written for me personally, I suspect that it was written for you too."
--Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
"Women and Other Monsters reconsiders and spins anew myths that have long instructed and inspired us, detailing modern and longstanding terrors women face while illuminating the monstrous powers we may yet reclaim. I started to make a list of people I wanted to give this book to, then realized the answer was just 'everyone I know.' Jess Zimmerman's writing is always a gift, and this is a work of epic bravery and beauty, brimming with insights that slice to the bone."
--Nicole Chung, author of All You Can Ever Know
"Jess Zimmerman's writing is always intimate and fierce, piercing and warm. I loved Women and Other Monsters--I ate it up, and it felt a little like it devoured me right back."
--Scaachi Koul, author of One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
"We are so long overdue for new mythologies about women and power. Jess Zimmerman's book is a pitch-perfect antidote to the sexist hash of our traditional stories."
--Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her