There are some essay collections that have a few essays I end up skipping or skimming. Usually it's a matter of personal taste and that writer just didn't resonate with me. However, with this collection, there wasn't a bad one in the bunch! Each one was more insightful and moving than the last.

The idea for this collection is so brilliant - different women express how anger has manifested in their lives. I found so much to relate to, even as someone that hasn't always felt the ability to express anger in an open way. Although some of the women's experiences weren't ones I've had in particular, there was a lot of common ground (I almost cried reading one woman's experience with chronic illness and the madness of the medical industry.) This collection was such a great reminder that anger can be a healthy emotion and that there's a lot of damage that can be done when it is stifled or ignored. Plus, harnessing a woman's anger can be a powerful thing!

I feel like the publisher should definitely consider bringing out additional volumes. I would love to see other writers' takes on this topic.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

I found this such an insightful read, and its amazing how quickly people judge woman to be argumentative just for being sure of what they want. I enjoyed reading all the different essays from different viewpoints and it made me think a lot about my own perspective. Thank you is all I can say.

If you are a woman, at some point in time, you would have been asked to not show anger. That anger is toxic. That it is better to be sad than be angry. Are women not entitled to express their anger?

Burn It Down is a compilation of some hard-hitting essays. An excellent exploration of women’s anger from a diverse group of women writers. On sexism, racism, sexual assault, child abuse, homophobia, and more. Essays that you relate to, some that you identify with. This is an important book and HIGHLY recommended.

Because it is a book of essays of course some speak to you more than others, but overall I found this to be affirming as a woman and a student of social history.

Lily Dancyger's compilation of women's essays on anger is stellar. I think it explores so many thought provoking elements and I will highly recommend it as a book discussion selection. I find myself still thinking about it and wanting to share the share the impact with other readers. I do however, need to share a caveat - I eventually realized that I couldn't read and digest the book quickly. I really needed time to reflect and review after each section in order not to become inured to the subject.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

The concept is great: 22 women from all different walks of life write about anger in concise essays. As the essays will tell you (over and over again), women’s anger is often diminished, ridiculed, stigmatized, and dismissed, so this was a cool collection for people writing about what makes them angry—abuse, trauma, addiction, Trump.

But.

This collection could get reeeeeaaallly repetitive. Not just in that all of the essays are themed together by a common emotion, but the narrative structure itself was often repeated from essay to essay:

Discuss a personal story of rage + connect to a systemic issue of women’s anger being diminished and all the other verbs mentioned above + writer finds social media activism as a positive outlet for anger.

Although the stories and women themselves varied, the structure for most of them felt the same in this precise way, which made me tune out at times. Some essays were written more successfully than others (which also happens in a collection), but the strength of the bookending essays made the other ones less compelling by comparison.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I will be posting a full review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Instagram.

By merit of this being an essay collection, I enjoyed several of the pieces included and not others. On the whole, the collection felt balanced in form, tone, and scope, but I wish there had been a more diverse group of experiences included in the text.

This was an amazing book. It put into words this amazing and alarming anger I feel. I'm frustrated and I feel alone in my frustration and deep sadness. I love that this book said it all for me. Each essay had a unique perspective to a different way we've been taught/told/forced to swallow, shelve or somehow push away our anger. There were stories about how women fought it, embraced it or even cried over it. We need more voices like this. We need more stories like these - ones that help us connect and realize we're not alone. It was awe-inspiring, frightening, wonderful to find a voice to my bewildering frustration through other women. I'm so glad I read this.

Burn It Down was a slow read for me - but necessarily so. It's a collection of essays by women from all walks of life, women who are angry.

Burn It Down discusses the many ways in which women express their rage (or are discouraged from doing so). It highlights how anger in women has been seen in society as unattractive, weak, and frankly, unacceptable.

The authors of these essays challenge the belief that women's anger isn't meant to be heard - they stress its importance, and examine how they have individually dealt with anger from various situations they have experienced in their lifetimes.

This is a worthwhile book for anyone to read. Thank you to netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Burn it Down is an anthology of essays written by women about anger. Anger, with its many forms, expressions, origins, and degrees. Editor Lilly Dancyger chooses from a wide swath of females, showing that there is no one group who owns this space more than another. There is the woman whose disease goes undiagnosed for a decade because none of her doctors were listening. The black woman living with the stereotype of the “angry black woman” to the point that she smothers all emotion. A Muslim American woman who is an outsider both as a Muslim and an American. Or, in a simpler vein, a woman, who like many of us, never felt anger was an acceptable emotion

In truth, I was proud to describe myself in terms of sadness rather than anger. Why? Sadness seemed more refined and more selfless—as if you were holding the pain inside yourself rather than making someone else deal with its blunt-force trauma.

Such a diverse outpouring of stories and eloquence.

Burn it Down is not a read-it-right-through book. It’s something to pick up, absorb, and whose sentences you’ll highlight. I found myself and many of the women I know in its pages.

This book was an eye-opening and touching read. Each woman who wrote a piece for this book laid themselves bare and expressed themselves in a way that really helped me question the way I deal with anger and the way the world perceives it!

This book gives you essays written by women about what makes them angry. I didn’t love this book and I didn’t hate it. None of the stories were long enough to make me want more. I felt it had a great array of different women with different backstories and lifestyles, but towards the end it just fell...flat. The stories were too short to really understand the background on a deep level.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

This book Was powerful to say the least. An amazing collection of writing by strong women.

I absolutely loved this collection of essays on anger, this is a much-needed book, what an amazing curator and what a great read. I'll recommend it to everyone.

A collection of compelling, incisive essays. I'm so glad I read this. I follow Lilly Dancyger's Memoir Monday email newsletter, and have read the work of Melissa Febos, Leslie Jamison, Marisa Siegel, and Rowan Hisayo Buchanan in the past. The pleasure of picking up an anthology is not just in reading new essays by writers you already like, but also in finding writers you haven't encountered before. This is a diverse, well-curated anthology—a great comp for readers who appreciated Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (ed. by Roxane Gay).

Anyone who reads this collection of essays on women's anger is bound to find at least one that resonates with them.

Women are not permitted their anger. It makes them unattractive. It makes them bitchy. It makes them... difficult. Women who are difficult are wrong, but so are women who are easy.

Women are angry because their pain and illness is dismissed. They are angry because if they don't resist rape and assault hard enough, their passivity is deemed consent. But they know that resistance can mean escalation, leading to greater injury and death.

These are the stories you'll find in Burn it Down. I thought I'd read it in small doses, over time, but I found it entirely bingeable and powered through it over a week.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. #BurnItDown #NetGalley

In Burn It Down, Dancyger complies a collection of essays from a diverse group of authors that explore their rage and their entitlement to not only feel it, but to express it. These essays explore themes such as chronic illness, racism, sexuality, societal expectations, and mental illness.

Usually when I review collections of essays, short stories, and/or poetry, I find myself in this same predicament of having some pieces really hit home for me while others not quite making an impact. This may be the first collection that I have ever read in which every single essay has impacted me. This gave me a whole list of new favorite authors to go out and explore.

This is such a well crafted and put together collection that is incredibly important to continue the conversation about women’s anger and how it’s perceived in the world. I highly recommend this book if you were a fan of Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad.

I received an Advanced Reviewer Copy of Burn It Down edited by Lilly Dancyger from the publisher Perseus Books, Basic Books through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

What It’s About: This is an essay collection of women writing about anger and the situations in their lives and how being angry has impacted them or how people perceive their anger.

What I Loved: This collection is fantastic! There are so many great essays that I think there's probably an essay that every woman could connect with. I learned so much about anger and other cultures and was able to put my own actions into the lens of people around me, I think this is what a good collection of essays should do. You should be able to learn, grow, and understand more. I particularly connected with the essays that discuss chronic illness and the anger that comes from having people not believe you or judge you because you don't look sick. The essays were powerful and eye opening, pick up this collection its fantastic.

What I didn’t like so much: I can't think of anything off the top of my head!

Who Should Read It: Women who want to read a collection that sees them. People who consider themselves allys to women, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQ causes and want insight into how they can be a better ally.

General Summary: An essay collection where women express their anger and how they got here.