Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman - Hardcover

"Lindy West is funny. That's the first thing you should know about her essay collection on feminism, fat acceptance, and Internet harassment....Lindy has faced so many intolerable and enraging situations as a fat woman who is outspoken in her writing and on social media, but she always frames her negative experiences with humor and perspective. With her clear-eyed insights into modern culture and her confidence in her own intelligence and personal worth, West appeals to the humanity of even the most parents' basement-dwelling, misogynistic and casually hateful of trolls."--Esquire, Best Books of 2016


"One of the most impressive aspects of this book is the level of nuance, self-reflection, and humanity that West displays in her analysis of her own writing and her relationships with others.... She shows that you can be funny and mean and incisive and brilliant, and you can also be thoughtful and considerate and write with intention....Throughout, West proves herself to be a considerate and critical narrator with equal capacity for humor and genuine reflection-a writer who can turn her analytical eye just as easily to society as to her own life. It's the best kind of memoir, and it shows that Lindy West still has a lot more to say-and that we should all keep listening."--Bitch Media

"Uproariously funny...Readers will delight in West's biting clarity....Despite its serious subject, West's ribald jokes, hilarious tirades, and raucous confessions keep her memoir skipping merrily along as she jumps from painful confession to powerful epiphany. Sure to be a boon for anyone who has struggled with body image, Shrill is a triumphant, exacting, absorbing memoir that will lay new groundwork for the way we talk about the taboo of being too large."--Booklist (Starred Review)


"Read her ferociously funny book and you'll be shouting her praises."--People

"Lindy West's debut book, Shrill, is an emotional rollercoaster. One moment you're snorting from laughter, trying to avoid all the weird looks you're getting on the train. The next you're silently absorbing a larger truth neatly packaged into the perfect sentence you didn't expect to read."--Mother Jones

"This is who Lindy West is: A constantly harangued feminist writer ready to transmute your BS into comedy....you need to read [Shrill]. It's hilarious, biting and wise."--The Huffington Post

"Stitch-inducing and searingly honest."--USA Today

"Read West's ferociously funny book and you'll be shouting her praises."
--People

"Lindy West's memoir is a witty and cathartic take on toxic misogyny and fat shaming. She comes to accept her body just as Internet trolls congregate en masse to try to rip this new confidence from her, but she's rearing to fight back...In Shrill, West is our fat, ferocious, and funny avenging angel."--NPR, Best Books of 2016


"It made me hurt, both from laughing and crying. Required reading if you are a feminist. Recommended reading if you aren't."--Jenny Lawson, #1 bestselling author of Let's Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY:
NPR, ESQUIRE, The LA Times, and NEWSWEEK

WINNER OF THE STRANGER GENIUS AWARD

Shrill is an uproarious memoir, a feminist rallying cry in a world that thinks gender politics are tedious and that women, especially feminists, can't be funny.

Coming of age in a culture that demands women be as small, quiet, and compliant as possible--like a porcelain dove that will also have sex with you--writer and humorist Lindy West quickly discovered that she was anything but.

From a painfully shy childhood in which she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her big body and even bigger opinions; to her public war with stand-up comedians over rape jokes; to her struggle to convince herself, and then the world, that fat people have value; to her accidental activism and never-ending battle royale with Internet trolls, Lindy narrates her life with a blend of humor and pathos that manages to make a trip to the abortion clinic funny and wring tears out of a story about diarrhea.

With inimitable good humor, vulnerability, and boundless charm, Lindy boldly shares how to survive in a world where not all stories are created equal and not all bodies are treated with equal respect, and how to weather hatred, loneliness, harassment, and loss, and walk away laughing. Shrill provocatively dissects what it means to become self-aware the hard way, to go from wanting to be silent and invisible to earning a living defending the silenced in all caps.