Thursday, August 02, 2018

King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes


(pb; 2006: translated from the French by Stéphanie Benson)

From the inside flap

“With humor, rage and confessional detail, Virginie Despentes─in her words 'more King Kong than Kate Moss'─delivers a highly charged account of womens’ lives today. She explodes common attitudes about sex and gender, and shows how modern beauty myths are ripe for rebelling against. Using her own experiences of rape, prostitution and working in porn industry as a jumping-off point, she creates a new space for those who can’t or won’t obey the rules.”

Review

In the six short essays that make up this collection, Despentes writes about, in her usual fiery and blunt fashion, about gender roles and behavior, how being raped and being a celebrity changed her, what we can do to fix ourselves and improve the social and cultural systems that shape and imprison us (as she sees it). This is an excellent, mostly focused read, one worth checking out.

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