Heck of a Bunch/ Badass Women Give the Best Advice: Everything You Need to Know About Life and Love - Book Review

Book Overview:

 

Women’s Studies scholar Becca Anderson has gathered the wisdom from a chorus of fabulous femmes for this one-of-a-kind advice book. From housewives to Hollywood starlets, from standup comedians to startup entrepreneurs, from feminists to Facebook queens, these badass women offer unvarnished and unabashed opinions about love, life, word, men, and sex and share their very frank and forthright thinking on the wild world of relationships. This delightfully dishy gathering of gal pals is like having a heart-to-heart with 200 of your closest friends. Garrulous girls and loquacious ladies of from every walk of life unleash their wicked wit in this humorous and enlightening compilation and tell it like it is. 

 

Topics include What the World Needs Now, Love Hurts, Lost Love, and Are Men Really Necessary and cover sex, personal ads, blind dates, break ups, weddings, and the prerequisites for the perfect kiss. Sidebars include quizzes, love and sex bucket lists and topics like “Size Really Does Matter,” and “Cry Me a River, The Weepiest Romantic Movies Ever.” Wait, there's more--true tales about wild women of yore that entertain as much as they enlighten. From Anais Nin to Lily Tomlin, from Amy Bloom to Dorothy Allison, from Drew Barrymore to Chrissy Teigan and beyond, there's no shortage of sass, sarcasm, or sizzle and a few shocks along the way!

 

My Review:

 

Sometimes we women need quotes and pick-me-ups to get motivated or to have our spirits lifted.  Badass Women Give the Best Advice is a book for and about women (no men allowed!).  

 

A thick skin is needed to read this book.  There's quotes and stories on sex, love, feminism, lesbianism, marriage, work, and wisdom.  It's not a book that you read once and put away.  It's good as a conversation starter or to refer to when you want to feel big on girl power.  Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of love, sensuality, and beauty is just one of the women we learn about in this book.  There's also quick rundowns on writer Simone de Beauvoir, advocate Amelia Bloomer, and more.

 

The quotes are the best part but the side stories are interesting as well.  Just some of my favorite quotes included in the book are:

 

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. - Lynda Barry

 

My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine. - Tallulah Bankhead

 

Not all of us have to possess earthshaking talent.  Just common sense and love will do. - Myrtle Auvil

 

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. - Marilyn Monroe