Dead Girls
Ratings7
Average rating3
15
Ratings7
Average rating3
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 An Edgar Award nominee for best critical / biographical Best of 2018 according to Kirkus, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Portland Mercury, Bustle, Thrillist, and Electric Lit A New York Times Editor's Choice, a best of summer 2018 according to Bitch Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, The Millions, Esquire, Refinery29, Nylon, PopSugar, The Chicago Tribune, Book Riot, and CrimeReads In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men’s stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator. Bolin chronicles her life in Los Angeles, dissects the Noir, revisits her own coming of age, and analyzes stories of witches and werewolves, both appreciating and challenging the narratives we construct and absorb every day. Dead Girls begins by exploring the trope of dead women in fiction, and ends by interrogating the more complex dilemma of living women – both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate. Reminiscent of the piercing insight of Rebecca Solnit and the critical skill of Hilton Als, Bolin constructs a sharp, perceptive, and revelatory dialogue on the portrayal of women in media and their roles in our culture.
Reviews with the most likes.
The synopsis for this book had me immediately. The pervasive fascination with true crime has dulled our culture's ability to examine and alter some disturbing mindsets we've mindlessly adopted. This book had that opportunity.
The first few chapters were intriguing investigations. Then, the focus collapsed into a memoir about a young woman's transition to Los Angeles. It was a confusing pivot and I waited in vain for Bolin to return to the Dead Girls matter at hand, on book jacket.
She is a talented writer. Unquestionably. But this collection of essays would have been stronger as two separate books.
DNF
The first four essays, I read were not cohesive. I hate to DNF a book, but I couldn't push through this one
I thought this was great! I definitely thought it would be more true crime focused but I'm so glad it wasn't. It has been a long time since I read some literary/cultural criticism essays and these were awesome. It's so nice to find someone else who truly appreciated what Gillian Flynn did in Gone Girl - and what all the other “girl”-titled thrillers (All the girls, The good girl, The girl on the train, etc) that came after missed completely!
As a fan of personal essays, especially ones about our relationships with popular culture, I LOVED this. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea but it's for sure mine.
The title is a little misleading, and Bolin addresses that on the first page: “This is a book about books. To try that again, it is a book about my fatal flaw: that I insist on learning everything from books. I find myself wanting to apologize for my book's title, which, in addition to embarrassingly taking part in an ubiquitous publishing trend by including the word girls, seems to evince a lurid and cutesy complicity in the very brutality it critiques.”
So if you're picking this up in search of a true crime-focused narrative, you'll be disappointed. I'm ambivalent about true crime so I was actually glad that it wasn't entirely focused on that. It's more about Joan Didion and Los Angeles but mostly about coming of age as a woman in a society that maybe prefers the titular dead girls. I love Bolin's writing style and found a lot to relate to here.
Books
7 booksIf you enjoyed this book, then our algorithm says you may also enjoy these.
