Funny captions along with even funnier faces of women in paintings. There were some chuckles to be had in this book and it will definitely be relatable to any woman. I do not feel this content needed to exist in book format. It is really just a collection of internet memes / instagram posts, meant to be digested quickly then forgotten immediately.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this funny look at mansplaining. I love those internet memes where people caption classical paintings and this book delivered much of the same humor. It has me rolling my eyes and busting out laughing in equal measure. A fun, quick look at one of the most annoying issues women have faced throughout history.

This book was so great! It was really funny. Combining the classic artwork with could-be current quotes was brilliant! This would be a great gift. I loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book!

Buy it for your coffee table, your guest bathroom, your work wife, the person in your contacts that you're always exchanging memes with. Men to Avoid in Art and Life is perfect for them ALL. This book is chock full of the hilarious, cringe inducing, relatable memes that made Nicole Tersigni Twitter-famous - ones that take classic art and pair them with mansplain-y captions that will make you laugh and sigh, because, well...all know that guy, don't we?

A mini art course that will make you laugh out loud. Includes a few super famous works but in general the paintings are lesser known. I rate that a plus as it was fun to discover something new. I wish the footnotes naming the title and artist had been on the same page. Hilarious all the same.

When I tried to post my review on amazon it said "this item is not eligible for review"

Thanks to Netgalley, for providing a digital copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

As a fan of beautifully and amazing trend of taking classical art pieces and adding contemporany texts, I enjoyed reading this book. A bit too short in my opinion, makes for a fast read to get some laughs and good meme material. I wish it had had more written content, as the introduction was quite well writen, and made me laugh, but alas, it’s not that kind of book. Nonetheless, Nicole Tersigni managed to represent through photographs, in very few words, those delightless moments in which you are bothered by the men represented in this book.

If you want a quick laugh and a not-so-in-deep reflection of feminism, this is a very good companion, that may also work as an introduction to some concepts before digging in the world of feminism, if you feel so inclined.

“Men to Avoid in Art and Life” will be published on August 11th, by Chronicle Books.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC, for which I promised to give an honest opinion.

I know I"m the outlier here, but I just didn't enjoy this book. The art was great, so that's why I gave it an extra star. I didn't find the "punch lines" all that funny. They just seemed so strident, like the author has a chip on her shoulder. Yes, I've run into some of this as a woman, but I just didn't find it funny, except for a few pages.

I wish the name of the painting and the artist was on the bottom of the page. I read this on an iPad which makes it difficult to flip back and forth.

Interesting concept. The author takes real paintings and provides quotes as subtitles for what she imagines the men are saying in the book. I found it incredibly infuriating (though that is the point). Its a commentary of the horrific things that have been said by men to women that reflect society's archaic gender roles.
Its good for a one time read, though I'm not sure it's a title I would want to purchase or own. It's kind of a book you flip through at Barnes & Noble when you're killing time. It's not bad, just (unfortunately) nothing too special. I would have liked it if the author had included references for feminist organizations or some kind of reference to anti misogyny websites.

Are you a woman trying to live your best modern life and just tired of the patriarchy? When you go to museums, do you enjoy laughing at classical art, saying "oooh, poor girl, I feel your pain!"? This is a hilarious book is for you! I don't know what else to say than that you must excuse me, I have to run off and pre-order this book for all of my friends and family.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


I love art and I am actually studying A level History of Art online at the moment. The author pairs traditional paintings with Twitter-worthy captions explaining the female experience and some men's patriarchal comments that are just plain ridiculous.

I really enjoyed the pairings of old art with new media. I can't really say much about this as it is more of what I would class as a gift book but it's something that I would buy someone for Christmas and would recommend to art lovers.

3 out of 5 stars!

This book is hilarious. The paintings chosen were perfect, and the captions capture pretty much whatever I think is happening in the painting when I go to this room of the museum. I have always wondered why exactly the women were so bored and miserable, and this book has specific answers. This is the kind of art history book I would like to have on my shelf. I wish so many of these painting events had not actually happened to me in real life.

Thanks to Chronicle Books, Nicole Tersigni, and NetGalley for this fun read, in which I got to educate myself about art while making fun of it at the same time.

This is a hilarious art book. So many of the captions are very relatable for women everywhere. The captions matched the art well. If you like art and feminist commentary - you will love this. It was a nice break from covid-19. I will probably get a copy for my coffee table.

Capturing the zeitgeist perfectly. Funny, sarcastic, and relevant, this makes for a light read and a perfect present.

This might be fine if Daniel Lavery hadn't done it one million times better in his Western Art History series on the Toast (https://the-toast.net/series/western-art-history/). Some of these got a proto-giggle out of me, but mostly the author put too fine a point on the joke. These paintings are beautiful and interesting and most of the text seems like a first-draft.

A cross between satire, classical fine art and gender study, "Men to Avoid in Art and Life" is a sarcastic portrayal of what the term "mansplaining" looks like in the eyes of contemporary women. Have you ever followed those meme pages where people in fine art are "saying" totally absurd things? That's precisely what we find in this book - but very much an extended version, under the hashtag #feminism.

I cringed and laughed my way through this book in the best way possible. I have never related to women in fine art more and therefore had an unstoppable urge to share some of the content with friends. One could argue that making jokes of misogyny is potentially problematic, but Tersigni skillfully avoids that trap by simply roasting the very misogynistic subjects. Some of the things they say are:
“We’ve been over this a million times. You can’t get pregnant if you’re on top. It’s called gravity.”
Or my favorite:
"Most girls only get an unsolicited look at my dick in their DMs. You're lucky you get one in person."

At the same time, the (probably mostly millennial) readers get a rare chance to admire classical art, which they can later identify through a handy index at the end of the book. However, I wish there was a bit more art history content to keep the reader involved such as intriguing facts about the artists - better yet, some absurd facts about the artists to keep up with the satirical theme.

That being said, this book is clearly not for everyone. Buy it for yourself or your feminist friends, but avoid sharing it with generally conservative people.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was the perfect funny short book I needed to cheer up during quarantine.

Nicole Tersigni has created a great blend where the reader can enjoy beautiful works of art, while at the same time laughing because of the oh-too-real dialogues that shouldn't feel so relatable.

Men to Avoid in Art and Life is a collection of paintings depicting men and women with the author's interpretation of sayings that the women may have been hearing at the time of the painting. Each woman's expression was so perfectly matched to the man's quote that it was easy to believe! As for the book itself, I loved this book! As a fan of art I not only appreciated the beautiful images, but I loved how each quote was perfectly paired with the painting. And sadly many of the quotes reminded me of the times I had heard the quote myself, but it helped to know that I was no alone! I simply loved this book and can't wait to gift it to the perfect friends in my life!

This is hysterical (omg please send me a physical copy!). I can already think of a few people that will be getting this as gifts. They need it! They are strong women who get mansplained constantly and I know will appreciate this.

Men to Avoid in Art and Life is a title too tempting to resist. I saw it on NetGalley and could not stop myself from having a look at it.

The idea is to pair classical paintings of couples with funny captions relating to men's behavior.

It is interesting how the author collected paintings where women seemed truly annoyed, bored, astonished or simply fed up.

Some jokes were better than others, but overall I enjoyed this book.

On a side note, I wish the information about the paintings was easily accessible. I had to keep going to the end of the book to find the names of those unknown to me.

An absolutely hilarious gift to the world. I loved flicking through Men to Avoid in Art and Life and rolling my eyes at the intensely relatable scenes. Next time I'm in a gallery, I'll look out for (or rather, swerve), men to avoid. This would be a great hashtag on Insta!