Customer Reviews

Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick: 28 Women Writers on Life, Sex, and Survival

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
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This book is not an ice cream sandwich.
This book is not a pair of jeans.
This book is not the last ten minutes of your commute to work.

This book is your mother crying when her mother died.
This book is that day with your best friend 22 years ago that still makes you smile and breath hard when you think of it.
This book is that time you laughed so hard your knees buckled.
This book is that time you were nearly killed.

And it takes you there like three feet from a thundering locomotive.

Finally, intelligent essays about being a woman- minus the PC garbage, minus the feel-good, typical "I emerged stronger than ever" glazed mentality. Life is not perfect, and these women show that their experiences are exactly their own. Loved it.

This book is a window on the lives of some very incredible women. As I read through the book I found myself cringing, laughing, and sometimes nearly crying at the ordeals through which each of these women emerged and found themselves transformed. Sometimes light, sometimes dark and intense, but all of it immensely readable. I couldn't put it down.

Not only do these women writers shine, in all of their talent and writing glory, but their stories are intimate, raw, often funny, and always real. Not to sound cliche--but I cried reading Autumn Stephens' touching piece, I laughed hard at the vulnerability and wit of Anne Lamott's and Mary Roach's pieces, and I felt a great wash of compassion and hope reading Anneli Rufus and Joyce Thompson. Each essay will touch you in some way and remind you that women are resilient, strong, and poetic. And, on the contrary, many are roaring quite loudly!

This book is sizzzzlin!!! The title of this book should be Purrrr, Meow, Howl, and Roar Softly because the essays will have you doing just that.

It's a very good book! The quality of writing was really good, and the essays themselves were inspiring in more ways than one. It was a great feeling reading what other women had to say on subjects I myself have confronted. Some of them even sounded the way I did! It is a really good book for women to read, because of all we have in common.
I have recommended it to some men at work, too, and at least one is started to read it. I told him to throw away all his relationship books and start learning the way women perceive and feel. I'm glad to say he's taken me up on it and is also enjoying the book.

These are great short essays. Perfect for a mom to read, since most moms don't have much extra time and it's hard to read a long book. It's hard to put it down.

Confession: I'm one of the contributors to this book. But it's still literarily acceptable for me to review it because no one was more surprised than I at the quality of the writing (I speak not of my own here), the diversity of the topics and perspectives, the laughs, the tears. I don't usually read anthologies (although I'd better start, because I'm editing one as we speak) but this one is, how you say, GOOD.