A Good Read

Have you read this book?

I would highly recommend it. Written by Gina Barreca (I know, I know, I write about her on here without end), it's really a seriously funny, articulately truthful book about being a woman.

For those of you who will undoubtedly hem and haw and mumble something under your breath about crazy liberal feminists, I won't declare any of your comments as valid until you've read this (and are no doubt converted).

With chapters like "Why Do Women Worry About Everything While Men Worry About Nothing?," "Who Are You Calling a Second Wife?," and "Like, Seriously, Is Anybody More Judgmental Than a Teenage Girl?," Gina (I can call her that now since she's no longer my professor--she told me so) will have you laughing tears of your eyes when you realize how spot on she really is with It's Not That I'm Bitter.

Below are some of my very favorite lines and passages (and I'm not even done reading it yet!):

"Can we tell the truth here? Not that I'm bitter, but the only people looking at fifty-year-old women on the beach are other fifty-year-old women, every single one of whom is elbowing whatever poor soul she's sitting next to saying, 'Do I look like her? No, come on, do I look like her? Look, that one there, the big one, do I look like . . . ?'"

"You have to admit that life is a riot once you start paying attention."

"And that's part of the business of being a grown-up, I suspect: figuring out what counts for real and not just what you believe 'should' count and then using that to keep you doing what you do every day."

"Life is great, but it isn't easy."

"Almost no woman would treat any of her acquaintances as poorly as she treats herself."

"Of course love is subject to change. Like a good wine or bad haircuts, love alters over time. And sometimes, too, it goes away. Which does not mean it wasn't there in the first place. Love changes, shifts, swerves into other lanes, changes its name, address, phone number, and favorite color. And, as with wine or haircuts, you can--at some point and for any number of reasons--stop loving what you once adored."

"Guilt is easier than action."