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by Luci Navas Sharry

Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism is arguably the first book that really introduced me to what I needed to know about women’s rights. Although I had been following feminist blogs on Tumblr for months, I felt a lot of pressure to “read up” and get educated on the issues everyone was talking about. Full Frontal Feminism is a widely popular book available at many libraries, including my high school’s, so I saw it as a good fit.

I found the book to be an enjoyable read that conveyed a lot of knowledge without being too dense like, say, a textbook. Valenti’s voice is clear and engaging, exactly what I look for in teachers and authors. The book covers a broad range of topics and does a lot of myth debunking, which I found to be incredibly helpful.

I’m not going to lie though, as much as I enjoyed reading this book, I feel like it didn’t cover its subjects deeply enough. At the time, the line between anti-sexualization and slut shaming was a blurry one for me, and I feel like this book’s very short explanation did very little to help me discern the difference. Not to mention the fact that she only talks about intersectionality very briefly towards the end–the rest of it seems to be aimed at thin white upper class women. She compares being stereotyped due to her Italian heritage to being a victim of racism. And book aside, she’s definitely had sparked some controversy over some of the things she’s tweeted and wrote about in the past.

One thing I also had a beef with was the book’s cover, and the title itself. To me, it seems like Valenti is trying to be edgy and daring with this, but I can’t find anything cutting edge in using a picture of a thin white woman’s torso (with her head cropped out), as a hook to catch people’s attention. If it was an attempt to parody sexualized imagery, it was a mediocre one at best.

All in all, I’d say this is a fairly decent book, which is a good read if you’re new to the principles of feminism and why it’s important in today’s society. I think it would be a great book to give to a friend or family member who has shown a genuine interest in learning about women’s rights, as it’s engaging and knowledgeable. But if you want to get more in depth knowledge on issues like sexualization, intersectionality, and the like, this isn’t the place to look.