I've sustained a low level of rage since I took my first feminist theory course in college. I received my official Angry Lesbian Feminist card when I completed my Master's degree in Women's Studies. My fury reached new levels following the 2016 election, and although I thought I couldn't get any angrier, it seems to have only gotten stronger since then.

I picked up Good and Mad shortly after the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Judiciary hearings, and I wasn't sure if I could handle it. Seeing the anger of so many women expressed and then ignored was incredibly painful, and I felt my ire transforming into depression and despondency. But I heard Rebecca Traister's interview about the book on NPR and decided I had to give it a shot. And I'm so glad I did! Good and Mad isn't a book about how women's rage has failed to make a difference, although that's sometimes been the case. It isn't a book about how anger can tear you down or ruin your life. It's a book that praises women's fury and provides hope for how it can change the world. I love that Traister doesn't approach the subject from a clinical or scientifically objective viewpoint; she's mad too, and she's not pretending otherwise. Women's anger should be taken seriously, not treated as a weakness, and this book shows the crucial role it's played in past and current political conversations about gender, race, class, and more. The conclusion gave me chills and recharged my Angry Feminist spirit. Good and Mad is the enraged manifesto that I needed.

Rebecca Traister's Good and Mad could not have been released at a more perfect time. This book focuses on the history of women's anger and especially highlighted today's political and social climate and the #metoo movement. This was a powerful feminist read and although hard to read at times, it has such an important message. For centuries, women have been taught to suppress their anger. There has been a breaking point in the past two years for women and this anger is currently and can continue to be harnessed collectively to promote much-needed changes.

It is obvious that Traister did in-depth research for this book and it is a heavy read that I have already recommended to so many of my friends and family. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for gifting me this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rebecca Traister explains her weighty feminist opinions on many controversial topics and it's an interesting read, whether readers believe in feminism or not!

The release of 'Good and Mad' couldn't be more timely. It's a well-researched and extraordinarily compelling historical and contemporary chronicle of feminism, the push-pull of political and personal power, and social struggles. Traister eloquently expresses frustration -- and justified rage -- and hope, sometimes in the same highly-charged sentence. Highly recommended -- absorb its lessons and get involved!! Channel anger into a push for positive change!

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister chronicles the awakening of female anger in the wake of the 2016 US election. In it, Traister discusses the #metoo movement created by Tarana Burke, Time’s Up, Run for Something, and the numerous other movements and organizations that have sprung up from women’s desire to do something with their anger.

She touches on the rage that has been present in women over time, the rage that black women and women of color have felt for a long time and unable to set aside, and the anger in white women just now relit by Trump’s presidency. She’s not afraid to call out white women on their shit, and let’s be real, white women deserve it. Maybe if we’d been angry sooner, things could be different.

She also describes how historically women’s anger has been shamed, pushed down, and punished in order to maintain the patriarchy. These are all fascinating, and enraging, topics to read about, but something about it kept me reading. Traister is a great writer, getting at the heart of issues with just the right tone. This past week, during the Kavanaugh hearings, was the perfect time to read this book, when I’m angry about the hearing with Kavanaugh and my own personal rage-worthy events.

I knew I liked Rebecca Traister after reading All the Single Ladies, and this is just another masterwork from her about something incredibly timely. The last two paragraphs need to be read from a bullhorn, put on billboards, posted online to women everywhere. “Don’t ever let them talk you out of being mad again.”

5/5 stars

YES. This book is manna at YET ANOTHER cultural moment that is heartbreaking/disgusting/infuriating - but also, as Traister outlines deftly, can be galvanizing and (please, oh please) revolutionary. It’s dense with historical detail about anger in feminism/activism and earnestly attentive to intersectionality (yay!). Still working out how anger fits into my own approach to living, but this book does a bang-up job of showing its functional upside.

This was a spirited defense of women's anger -- secondarily as something emotionally healthy (which is seems to be the usual focus for this type of book), but primarily as a CONSTRUCTIVE political force in American life. Traister persuasively argues that attempts at quelling or suppressing female anger is not only a manifestation of patriarchal BS from individuals trying to control the women in their lives, but also a larger, more insidious impulse that understands the true power of women united in anger. I loved revisiting various movements and women through this lens, and particularly appreciated the explicit parallels the author makes between our current moment and the 1970s (something I've seen some writers allude to not fully flesh out). I also appreciated Traister's clear eye towards intersectionality, and while that balance will be very YMMV, I thought she handled it nicely & used those themes to bring out larger points very effectively. This is a book I really enjoyed, that got me righteously pissed off, and that gave me hope that the current resurgence of female anger in the wake of Trump's election can continue to build into something constructive in our culture. I'm also looking forward to the audio when this is released, as I'd like to revisit this book in smaller chunks (I tore through it one sitting on my initial read). Heartily recommend

Reading this was simply cathartic and inspiring. It focuses on the present day aftermath of Donald Trump's election, but grounds itself in the earlier losses that led to this. It is a reminder that we have every right to be angry, but that anger isn't the end of the story.

The title of this book, GOOD AND MAD, drew my attention like a moth to a flame. Yes, my name is Madelon, and I answer happily to Maddy, but more often than not I hear "Hey, Mad." I have embraced the moniker as a statement of who I am and not necessarily my emotional state. And, I have been called an 'angry little woman.' How could I not read this book?

Women have been trained for centuries (maybe even millennia) to suppress anger and rage. Who is doing this to women? Mostly men, but other women as well. How many times, while growing up, were you told to be "ladylike?" The Women's March was a singular, worldwide, demonstration of female anger. It took this book to tell me that white, male, American journalists were belittling the effort the very next day. How did I miss that? I was one of those very angry women. I would have marched except for the fact that I had had knee replacement surgery just 23 days prior. My sister traveled to Washington, DC and came home saying it was a life-changing experience. Maybe I missed the denigration of the women who marched because I watched more AM Joy and The Rachel Maddow Show than I did those cable news programs hosted by white men. I was angry on November 9, 2016, angry and in shock. Now, in 2018. I am as angry, if not more so, than that awful day after the election.

This book is not a page turner. It evokes anger at known injustices by their very telling. It is not only a contemporary work, it is up to the minute. However, it is not just a rehashing of current events, it delves into the history of the suppression of women. If you look at the labor movement, it was started by angry women. Did they get credit for this? No. Were the black women who worked tirelessly on behalf of the march on Washington, DC, the march where Martin Luther King, Jr. made his iconic speech, allowed to address the throng? No. Were they even allowed to march with the leadership? No.

Think back to 2017, January 21st to be precise. News coverage of this event did not emphasize the way women (and men) of diverse backgrounds came together to change the world. Instead, the media put forth a story of behind the scenes divisiveness within the ranks. What better way to prevent needed change than to say that those seeking reform can't even get along with each other. It is this kind of division that has allowed one-third of this country to maintain power since the writing of the Constitution. The white male minority rules because that is the way our government was formed. White women enjoy a certain supremacy by proxy so they support white men against their own better interests. When a diverse group of women come together to discuss what must happen to create a more diverse leadership in government, from municipal all the way to the White House, and the result is white women remarking that their non-white sisters are finally starting to understand them, the whole point of diversity is lost.

This book will push ALL your buttons, and that is EXACTLY why you need to read it. Those pushed feminist buttons will inevitably change the world. And to Rebecca Traister I extend a hearty, and heartfelt, thanks for acknowledging that I, as a woman, have every right to be angry, and have every right to express that anger.

A 5-star scale does not do a book like this justice. On a scale of 1 to 10. this book is an 11! It is a must read for women to show them that their anger is not only justified but necessary. Use that anger to fuel the big changes needed. This is a must read for men who seem clueless, who want to promulgate the notion that women only have worth if they are producing children and cooking dinner. And, this is a book for men who are ingrained with the need to join feminists, to be feminists themselves, in the fight for absolute equality. Once you have read it, I hope you will feel compelled to pass on the need to read this book to your daughters, your sons, family and friends. I know I will.

Finally, you just might want to read this as an eBook. The notes contain links - very long links - to articles online. Clicking the links will take you to source material. Typing those links will try your patience.

I requested this book because I enjoyed Traister's All The Single Ladies and because there were a couple of recent books about women's anger that were getting some buzz. The other was Rage Becomes Her: the power of women's anger by Soraya Chemaly. The part of Good and Mad that I found the most interesting is her own personal story about Harvey Weinstein (not sexual abuse, but verbal and physical assault of her and a fellow journalist by Weinstein and her proximity to his world and the inside stories). The rest of the book does touch on the history of women's anger, but it is firmly rooted in the present day and the election of Donald Trump. Because of this focus, I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have otherwise. It's not quite far enough from the event and our collective anger has yet to do anything to turn the tide, etc.

Very timely book on a subject I have a lot of vested interest in.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister was an amazing read and incredible read, very informative and interesting.

From Seneca Falls to The Woman’s March to today, the only thing that has changed society is people who are “Good and Mad” and not going to take it anymore. This book could not be more timely and on point. Rebecca Traister has again managed to tap directly into the current moment and laid out not only the bizarro world and surreal times we currently find ourselves in, but gives great insight into how gender politics have played into how we got here, and where we go next. Read it! Give it to your friends and loved ones, and tell them to get onboard. Buckle up! The ride may be bumpy, but so worth the destination.

I tore through this. I loved it - kept reading things to my husband that resonated (and that I knew he would recognize in me) and I cried a lot. There were so many recent things that I hoped would be included (like Nanette!) and then they were and I was delighted every time. I felt so deeply as I was reading it that these were pieces of history I should have been taught as a young girl, about all these brave and angry women who have made change in this country. This will be one of my favorites of the year for sure.

Once again, Rebecca Traister hits it out of the park, this time with a thorough examination of women and anger. She explores the history of women's anger, from the 1600s up through the current #metoo movement. Well researched and quotes from noteable women throughout. An important work and welcome addition to the canon of feminist literature.

It's hard to tell if a book is long-winded or not if you're reading it as an e-book. However, I will say that this felt a little long to me. There was a LOT of Hilary Clinton stuff in it, which is fine, I get it, it makes sense. But maybe some of it was repetitive and could have been eliminated?

Anyway, I actually did get a LOT out of this, and sometimes Traister seemed to be looking right at me as she was writing--I felt SEEN. Which is such a good feeling while reading.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

I devoured this. Traister has done it again. (If you haven't read All the Single Ladies, you need to go read it right now.)
A mixture of personal narrative, history, journalism and feminist critique, pick this up if you've found yourself angry at some point over the past two years, two decades or really, the last two millennia...

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is very powerful and at times hard to read. It does a wonderful job of capturing the breaking point of women’s anger – the slow build up overtime until the breaking point with the election of 2016. Definitely necessary for anyone who is new to reading about feminism, or is not comfortable with their anger themselves.