When I first found out about this book, it was almost a visceral reaction that I HAD to read it. And I was very happy when I got the ARC.

Anger is something that I was proud of not feeling in my younger days, even more so because I was appreciated for being a well behaved girl. But later on in my life, when I started to show my anger in explosive ways especially during some particular depressive episodes, it was always accompanied by a feeling of shame that I had allowed myself to feel that anger. Even now, it’s not an easy emotion for me to reconcile with but I also don’t know what to do with all the rage I sometimes feel.

Hence, this book is something that I really needed to read. These 22 women share their devastating and profound and diverse and real stories of feeling angry, suppressing it, suffering because of it and finally reclaiming it so that they could decide how they wanted to express their rage. It’s an extremely powerful collection of essays and I was amazed by how much of myself I saw in these very personal stories - it helped me feel a little less alone and maybe the next time I feel angry, I might decide to react differently.

I usually write reviews and rate each story in an anthology but that would be very unfair here, so below you can find what I understood and felt while reading the stories of these amazing and strong women. If you find that it’s all very long to read, just know that I believe every woman should read this book because I promise you, this is important and you will find some part of yourself in these pages. Highly recommend!!!

CW: Sexual assault, drug abuse, self harm, gaslighting, deadnaming and misgendering of trans women, physical and emotional abuse

Lungs Full of Burning by Leslie Jamison

This essay about the author’s personal experience with anger, always insisting that she felt sadness rather than anger felt very relatable to me because I think I’ve done the same myself. And her insistence that both these emotions aren’t mutually exclusive, that we should be able to express and hone our anger and let it help us fuel our fight for our rights is really invigorating and motivational. She also points out rightly that for some women, it’s a privilege to be able to be restrained in their anger and be lauded for it, while Black Women are unfairly deemed angry and hysterical just for being themselves.

The One Emotion Black Women are Free to Explore by Monet Patrice Thomas

This was such a powerful but painful read, about how the author always had to put fear above her anger because expressing her true emotions as a Black woman would always end up in her losing something or becoming unsafe. These anecdotes of her life show how her being angry while being Black would always be considered more violent and full of attitude rather than a righteous expression of her feelings, and sometimes stopping herself from expressing it is her only choice.

My Body is a Sickness called Anger by Lisa Marie Basile

We often read about how women in pain are considered as liars or being hysterical, instead of diagnosing what’s causing the pain. This is the author’s own story of struggling to make sure her voice is heard and demand a diagnosis while living with debilitating chronic pain of almost her whole body and finally waiting years to get her condition diagnosed. And the author rightly points out that every time we aren’t heard and dismissed, it only fuels our anger which leads to stress ultimately leading to more sickness and this is a cycle that keeps going on. It’s a very harrowing but eye opening read about the need to advocate for ourselves even when the whole world refuses to believe us.

Guilty by Erin Khar

This is the author’s story of how being sexually assaulted in her childhood and never having a way to channel her rage translated into years of feeling guilty and extreme anxiety (for being angry) and suppressing it all under the haze of drugs. And it’s also about her fight to get back up and find better ways to understand her anger and cope with it.

Why We Cry When We Are Angry by Marissa Korbel

I related to this essay so hard because I have encountered the same thing too many times - when I’m angry, it manifests as tears. While we particularly try to suppress them in professional settings because we are automatically assumed to be weak if we let the tears flow, the authors calls for us to stop pushing them down and letting our rage show, either through writing (like her) or even through the tears themselves.

On Transfeminine Anger by Samantha Reidel

This was such an insightful and profoundly personal piece by the author, telling us how she used anger and aggression as a defense mechanism because she didn’t feel comfortable in her own body and just wanted to not feel hurt. But post transition life and being able to live it authentically has definitely helped her, but she also explores how her lessons about anger from pre-transition living as a boy might inform her attitudes towards it in the present. She also calls for solidarity between cis and trans women, rightly pointing out that we can all help each other by understanding different perspectives.

Unbought and Unbossed by Evette Dionne

The author brings great insights into how much intersectionality affects how she has always been perceived by others - being a fat Black woman means that she’ll always be considered the aggressor despite no fault of her own. I totally felt her words when she mentions trying to make herself small and not taking up space so that she isn’t misjudged - it hit me hard because I won’t deny that I have done the same a lot of times. I laud the author’s call to reclaim our anger and use it to fuel our fight against systemic injustices and transgressions, and not feel guilty about taking up space that we deserve.

Rebel Girl by Melissa Febos

As a young politically aware lesbian feminist, the author finds that she is unable to express herself openly and being the victim of bullying and slut shaming further forces her to turn her anger inward. But her story of finding solidarity and meeting like minded teenagers at camp is really amazing and I liked getting to know how it helped her channel her anger into her writing, and not feel hesitant about feeling it.

Hangry Women by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

I’m amazed by how every essay is hitting some part of me hard, and this one is no different. This is about the author’s struggle with feeling hungry but starving herself because thin bodies are propagated to have more value in our media. And how we are sometimes made to feel ashamed just for wanting to eat more or more frequently. As someone who has starved myself many a times in my life for achieving that thin body, but also feeling ashamed whenever I couldn’t control myself, I totally understand the author’s rage at the horrifying statistics of women dying everyday due to some form of eating disorder.

Enojada by Rios de la Luz

The author tells her story of childhood abuse and how the rage of not being believed by her own mother translated to her anxiety and panic attacks and eroding her trust. And finally she tells the importance of reclaiming her anger and using it to write her own story because it is her right, whether anyone believes her or not.

A Girl, Dancing by Nina St. Pierre

This was another painful but relatable story about how young girls are always expected to take up much more and be mature and understand a lot more than they actually should or are capable, putting an undue burden on them. And when they are unable to live up to these unfair expectations and act out, it’s considered a moral failing and they are punished, rather than trying to understand what’s behind their anger. I totally second the author’s point that young women should be allowed to be themselves rather than try to box them into roles they can’t play.

My Name and My Voice by Reema Zaman

The story of a Bangladeshi immigrant, I connected a lot to this. The author’s explanation of how women’s anger usually borne out of injustice is more noble than a man’s anger born usually out of personal insult and ego hurt really resonated with me. And every instance of when she is asked to be quiet about abuse, when she is told that boys will be boys, and when she makes herself small because we are taught that love is compromise and she has to make everything better for her husband - it all felt too realistic for me to handle and I really wanted to know how she came out of it all.

Inherited Anger by Marisa Siegel

As someone who suffered a lot of emotional abuse at the hands of her drug addict father, the author explains how her anger helped her cut herself off from him and channel it into her writing. But she also explores the idea of how much influence her own anger has on the way she is bringing up her son, wanting him to be secure and never have to suffer like her, but also be able to express freely whatever emotion he feels. This is the first story till now that deals with how the anger might affect across generations and I found her perspective very illuminating.

On the Back Burner by Dani Boss

Wow, every single author’s personal story seems directly like a page from my own life and I truly don’t understand how to process it all. In this the author talks about how we women are more prone to be silent when something wrong has been done to us, but only rage about it later in our head (or in private) or to our trusted female friends. And this is so me because I always vent my anger in a group chat which has all my close girl friends, but never at the actual subject of my anger. And the author’s issues are compounded because of being in peri menopause and she is unsure how to express all her frustrations without badly affecting her children. Definitely a lot to think about.

Basic Math by Meredith Talusan

It is actually surprising how a trans woman who grew up as a boy also internalizes the same sexist norms that all of us girls are conditioned with since childhood. The idea of how we women are asked to minimize our intellect to keep the peace, always try to pose any of our criticisms to a man as a question rather than an assertion even if we know we are right, and how we are considered disruptive if we refuse to accept the sexist status quo - it felt very personal to me because it’s another thing which I have learned over the years (to silence myself, not the other way around) so that I can have some peace of mind in my life. And reading the author’s powerful words makes me question if the peace of my mind is worth all the ways I make myself small.

The Color of Being Muslim by Shaheen Pasha

When the author tells how as a Pakistani-American Muslim woman if she expresses her anger fervently, she would be considered a terrorist in waiting but if she remained passive, she would be considered as an oppressed Muslim, I realized how much tougher it is for her to find an outlet for all her rage, which is compounded by the Islamophobes on one hand, and her own community members on the other hand who shame her for not conforming to their restricted beliefs. I’m glad she found her own path where she could practice her faith while also being an very vocal opponent of everyone who tries to silence her. And it was heartening to see that her daughter is able to live a life with a little less anger despite the kind of world she is living in.

Homegrown Anger by Lisa Factora-Borchers

As a Filipino-American living in small town Ohio, the author’s anger manifests in her writing because it’s not always easy to confront the bullies, misogynists, nationalists. And when she escapes the town which she thought was the reason for all her problems, she realizes that all the racism and white supremacy is prevalent even in bigger cities, it just has different forms. I liked the author’s advise to hone our anger because only anger which is sustained for long periods of time can lead to resistance and growth, and how we can teach the same to our next generations.

Crimes Against the Soul by Sheryl Ring

This was a devastating read. The author might be a practicing lawyer but being trans and lesbian means that everyone else assumes they have the right to misgender her and refuse to even work together in certain instances. Her anger is definitely righteous indignation because when lawyers and judges who are supposed to uphold the constitution and do good for people behave this violently towards their colleague, it’s so hard for her to ever find the proper outlet for it. The term she uses is crushing her soul because they all really are doing that by trying to prove that they get to decide her identity and sexuality, not her.

For Women Who Grew Up on Eggshells by Minda Honey

The author’s story of having to live quietly around a father who was prone to tempers and rages and gaslighting, and years later trying to figure out how to express her anger without hurting him the way he hurt her is very profound and left me with a lot to think about.

No Room for Fear by Megan Stielstra

The author’s story is the nightmare scenario many parents are kids are living in these days - afraid of the next school shooting. The author’s personal experiences with it are harrowing to read about and I was really tensed until she got to the end. And one thing I’m sure, she has every right to be furious about the situation - in fact, we should all be.

Going to War with Myself by Keah Brown

As a disabled Black woman, the author faces a lot of discrimination and mocking throughout her life but channels the anger that she feels towards herself, as if her disability is her fault and it was so full of pain. Her journey to realize that she is a beautiful Black woman like any other and it’s the others who should be ashamed because of their prejudices felt so important to read about, and her assertion that marginalized people should use their anger to change the world for the better instead of waiting for others is excellently put.

So Now What? By Anna Fitzpatrick

There is so much to unpack here - from the author’s rape by someone she trusted to her feeling responsible for defending him because he was usually a nice guy to feeling angry about being unable to find the right vocabulary to describe all her conflicting emotions - it’s a lot to take in. I think she raises the right point when she says that we should concentrate less on trying to rehabilitate the careers and lives of sexual abusers and channel our anger to figure out what the victims and survivors need to move on.

This book is entirely about women and anger. Finally! Essay collections are not normally my cup of tea, but this subject matter was very enticing to me, and the book delivered.

I have written a review of this book in the context of a blog post that I posted on my academic blog dealing with multiple books about women's anger. Here is the extract about BURN IT DOWN, which I am also going to post on the Goodreads account that's linked to my academic Twitter profile. I usually don't use that account much because I don't want colleagues to police my readings, but this book was too important not to display it alongside my 'professional' profile. Anyway. Here it is:

This summer, I read about anger: I read a book about anger itself and two very angry books (for different reasons). [...] The anger book is BURN IT DOWN, a collection of essays edited by Lilly Dancyger. [I got this book as a free ARC on NetGalley - thanks for being so liberal with downloads!] The anthology contains 22 essays written by women of different backgrounds, different ages, different anything. At first, I was a little taken aback by the large number of contributions to this volume - was it going to be chaotic with so many voices? I was wrong. There are so many reasons for women to be angry that really, perhaps the book needed to be even longer? It was an excellent read, once I came to terms with the fact that some of the essays are not written for me. I can understand the anger of a American Black woman about how she is educated not be openly angry because she would be automatically seen as threatening and that would put her in danger (“The one emotion Black women are free to explore”, by Monet Patrice Thomas), but ultimately, that essay is not for me. I cannot relate to it and I am not supposed to - I am angry alongside her because she is silenced, and she is silenced even more than any white woman, who does not have to keep her body, any words in check. I am OUTRAGED at the number of ways women can be enraged - and amazed at how all these authors put those feelings onto the page. Being clear while being angry is not an easy job. Looking at a part of yourself you mostly try to hide and recount it as a sort of spectator of yourself is even less easy.

I will not comment on the content of the essays - how can someone cast any form of judgement on the way someone else decides to express their feelings is beyond me. This was also not why I read this book. I picked it up because I was burning like the match on the cover - I am not a full-on fire: a match is enough (it’s also annoying like those birthday candles that you cannot blow out? Has anyone else ever had them? I hate those prank things). I was so relieved to find such different women sharing my own ways of expressing anger - I felt like anger could finally be the missing link to building a universal pact of womanhood. I, too, like Marissa Korbel (“Why we cry when we’re angry”), cry a lot when angry. It’s so frustrating biting back tears when you’re enraged and trying to make a point but - damn it! - you hiccup and start trembling and nobody takes you seriously anymore. I found myself screaming, “Listen to what I am saying and don’t look at how I am saying this! I cannot help the tears, but you listen!” on multiple occasions. I, too, like Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (“Hangry Women”), get extremely hangry - and yet I go on diets, and be mad at the drugs I have to take because they slow my metabolism down and it’s a mess. I know it’s not my fault that I am hungry (I know!) - and yet I watch what I eat because I do not want to be bigger than what Ike up hangry all the time. I read Rowan’s essays three times - a true revelation. And oh boy, didn’t we all met an Alexi in graduate school? (from Meredith Talusan’s essay, “Basic Math”).

BURN IT DOWN lit up my spirit. Reading this book made me scared, sad, angry, but also very happy in the shared womanhood it made me experience. Read a couple of essays, read them all. Either way, it’s great. am supposed to be (I also eat my stress aways but that’s another topic entirely). So I get angrier. And wa

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a preview ARC for an honest review.

This collection of essays was amazing. It spoke to me on so many levels, and from the first essay on I found myself saying “yes, yes, yes!” This felt very timely to me, as my girlfriends and I have been talking about how things have changed for women since we were growing up, but how much the younger generation still has to fight to be heard, to be respected, to be treated fairly and not seen as an object or a caretaker or second class citizen.

The contributors cover all aspects of society and cover a range of experiences and topics about being female and why they aren't going to be angry anymore: immigrant, Muslim, Black, sexual harassment in the workplace, rape, and transgender to name a few. I found the essay by the transgender female the most interesting because of the unique perspective of growing up as a male and existing and living under certain unspoken rules of maleness that are allowed (in this case the classroom), but then returning to the classroom as a female and having to relearn what is acceptable for a female in regards to how we are expected to interact with males and how we shouldn’t appear too intelligent or try to make the males look weak or stupid. Hearing it from her point of view just solidified what I had already suspected and felt that I had experienced and watched other strong, intelligent females experience.

Each author’s story and background are unique and while they seem to give the reader a singular view of what it’s like to be a female in our society today, frankly, take all the uniqueness and adjectives and descriptors away and nothing changes-we are all a united sisterhood fighting the same stereotypes and patriarchal rules that have governed us for centuries. It doesn’t matter what our skin color is, or where we were born, we need to learn to not only love and respect ourselves, but respect and support each other. That’s the only way we are really ever going to overcome this inequality.

I want to give a copy of this to every female I work with! I will definitely recommend it to them. Thank you again Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

This was a FANTASTIC essay collection! Fiercely feminist, it examines the myriad ways women experience anger. From the first experience of true anger, to practicing anger as a mechanism for social change, the contributors to this anthology run the gamut.

I was especially happy to note that Dancyger (the Editor) featured voices that are often marginalized in feminist discussion and discourse. Essays in BURN IT DOWN appear from trans women, Latina women, African American women, you name it. That is, more than anything, what I found so special, because each experience of female anger is so different, and it is often rooted in a woman's experience in the world. One's cultural identity is often a important factor in shaping how she deals with anger--any emotion really--so by including women from different backgrounds, the reader is able to gain more of an understanding of where this anger comes from and how it affects all of us. By that I mean society as a whole, not just women or a particular subset, but the culture we experience, because, to be honest, cultural (r)evolution is often rooted in anger, manifesting itself when those who have suffered refuse to do so any longer.

I wouldn't be surprised to find this book on multiple syllabi for Women's Studies classrooms in the coming years. It is truly an accomplishment for literature and for its contributors. It isn't often a book with so many unique and dynamic voices, encompassing such a range of experience, comes so close to incorporating a universal truth: that anger is just as important an emotion as love when it comes to shaping who are and who we become. Just as darkness and light need to coexist in order to exist at all, BURN IT DOWN demonstrates that we must have also anger in our lives in order to know when we are experiencing love and, most importantly, progress.

This book contains about 22 stories from different women about their experiences with anger. I was really interested in reading this and thanks to Net Galley, I was able to get an advanced copy. I feel like women aren't allowed to express their anger like they want to. We have to go and vent to our friends while keeping a smile on at home. I wanted to like this book so much. However, I'm not sure that short stories are for me. I wanted to know more about all of the women and their experiences. Maybe this would have appealed to me more if it focused on two to four women and not 22 of them.

It is important for these women to tell their stories though. If you like short stories and nonfiction, then this book will be right up your alley.

BURN IT DOWN was a very interesting novel, most of all because it featured essays written by all the various people identifying as women. This was very impactful to me because I know, for example, why women familiar to me – my friends, my acquaintances, my aunts, etc. – are angry and I can appreciate the reasons for those I am sympathetic towards but perhaps do not identify with are angry, but Burn It Down more fully articulates why these women are angry.

This is nice as it serves not only to better educate me on matters I had an inkling about but not a full understanding of – and it is especially nice because these essays present this information without me having to burden other women with the task of educating me. It is not anyone’s responsibility to do the emotional labor of educating the ignorant – in this case, me – on any given subject; I am aware enough to know what I do not know, and the onus is on me to educate myself.

These essays presented well-articulated, insightful thoughts that I feel more informed for reading. A great, recent read-alike to this is GOOD AND MAD by Rebecca Traister.

Burn It Down is an apologetic collection of essays from women who learned to release their anger despite everything they have been taught about keeping it in. They share their voices of rage and anger in a way that screams "no more!" The reasons for their anger is diverse and this covers a lot of different reasons for anger including assault, race, family matters and so many more. Each woman who has shared their story in this collection has added their voice to make a powerful impact on what it means to be female and angry.

Simply an incredible collection made up of diverse voices and strong, relatable stories which both enraged and placated me in so far as I was contented to feel a little less alone in my own daily anger. Each writer here is worth watching. Several were already favorites and I’ve found many more to add to my list. 🙌🏻

A book about woman's right to be angry, to get angry, regardless of the social pressers. This book is about the situations in which woman have found themselves and felt that they were unable to be angry or had their anger misjudged or patronised.

Did it do what it set out to? There were plenty of angry storeys. Stories about anger and stories to read made me angry. Working off the blub this is definitely a book I would buy. However, I am glad I didn't.

This is my first DNF review book. I was itching for this book, it spoke not to me but about me. I used to angry cry, that ended when I was a teenager and another female from my own family used it against me.

Why did I not love it the way I thought I would? I think it was a mistake to make Leslie Jamison's Lungs Full of Burning the first essay. I agreed with her point of view up until she started to talk about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.

.Though I only know the storey in passing and did not watch the movie I have an idea of the incident. I felt that Jamison had left the realm of talk about anger and slid into the topic of violence. I somehow felt that Jamison was validating the violence used while still trying to take both sides. Though I personally feel violence should be a last resort as a defensive measure. I think if this essay had to be included it should have been in the middle or end of the book. It really took away from my enjoyment of the book. It also leads me to reflect more on the cover of the book which I also felt, after a reassessment to be indicative of violence.

The majority of the other stories I read did give me a rush of motivation. Motivation to feel how I feel and not be ashamed of it. I really supported the idea of the book but felt the above reasons stopped me from wanting to pick up the book again.

Unfortunately, I stopped reading at page 68.

I feel if the book was to focus solely on anger and not drift towards violence it would make all the difference I would also love to read something similar but on how society shames men who cry.

** Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review **
Necesario y honesto, creo que esas son las dos principales palabras que definen este libro. En una sociedad patriarcal, donde si la mujer se enojaba era una loca, una histérica, y que esta cambiando, pero lentamente y en base a muchísima lucha, creo que es necesario un libro como este. Me identifique fuertemente con varios pasajes del libro y también contribuyeron a traer un nuevo punto de vista sobre otras cosas. Recomendable, no solo para mujeres, sino también para que los hombres puedan crear conciencia.

An honest open raw group of essays about women’s anger.Intimate honest stories about the way women express their anger what drove them to this fury.Pass this book girlfriend to girlfriend discuss in women’s groups an important book,#netgalley#pegasusbooks

A strong collection of essays by notable writers about women's anger (in personal contexts). Yes, another addition to similar books. Yes, new voices and issues that relate back to why women are angry. As with other important issues, this book cannot be put in enough hands.

This book is so timely and necessary. Necessary for the women and girls who hold in their anger. For those women who have learned to express their anger but still face shame from others for doing so. And necessary for the men who contribute to the societal belief that a woman's anger is not justifiable and shouldn't be expressed. This is a beautifully curated and inspiring collection, so varied in the stories and experiences shared.
These stories need to be read. These voices need to be heard.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for granting my request to read this book.

People need to read this book. This needs to be required reading before you leave high school. It really gets you connected with your fellow woman. For the men it could give you a look into why what you do sometimes is not okay.

I really loved this book! It presents a wide spectrum of diverse women’s voices on the subject of anger. Each writer offers a personal narrative about every aspect of anger and rage which they have experienced. A complicated picture emerges of how anger has been treated as a most negative emotion which women should not express. Within this collection the writers show how necessary it is to not only express this emotion but to embrace it and use anger to reach greater heights of creativity and self reflection and awareness. This is an extremely timely book which I wish had come out sooner.

This book is a collection of personal essays from female writers who have experienced some trauma in life that has left them unable to communicate their anger. This book is their expression of that oh-so negative and societally inconvenient female emotion.
I love anything from Seal Press publishing house, as this book is, as it is not afraid to explore so much of what society wants to placate in the female experience.
The essays are short and fast-paced, and varied, making for a swift and engaging read.
The only negative is what makes me part of the problem, as it were: it left me feeling a bit down, reading about negative feelings and experiences. I still recommend it to women readers.

This book contains short, personal essays from all kind of women. It deals with the subject of the consequences of showing (or not showing) your anger as a woman, and it has some serious consequences. The writers deal with anger, rage and years of built up injustice in their worklives, marriage, health, family and just from being a woman.

The essays are very short, so this book is a fast read. Every essay is wel chosen and a couple of them gave me an Oprah "aha" moment. I would highly recommend this book, because it feels like a good talk with al the women in your life. Recognisable for every woman, a good look inside womens brains for men.

Women Writing about Anger is the book I needed but didn't know I did, not when you are told "stop whining" and "why are you so anti-men?" Or "that's very unlady-like of you," and more so today- there are so many avenues for women to express themselves, but with these avenues also come very patriarchal expectations. You can't help but ask when will women catch a break?
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC, in these 22 women, I did feel home.