This is a fun little gift book for the literary-minded feminist in your life (which may be you!). Meg Vondriska is behind the famous "Men Writing Women" Twitter/X account, which has spawned many imitators, as well as the contract for this book. It's a satirical writing guide for writers seeking to imbue their manuscripts with a little more of the masculine energy that has inspired so many actual published authors to write about breasts as if they respond to emotional stimuli, & churn out canonical works that aggressively fail the Bechdel test. She addresses key female stereotypes & how to use them, the perfect tropes for flattening your female characters, & of course, the descriptive language required to ensure that every reader knows you've never actually met a woman in real life.

The book is a mix of tongue-in-cheek literary analysis & writing exercises, with actual blank pages on which to complete the work. It's all very funny, but not necessarily breaking new ground for the assumed audience of the book. The blank pages also give it the feel of a book you might find in a break room or on the back of the toilet. Some chuckles to pass a few minutes of downtime. I really wish there had been more substance to it, but I guess when you're turning a Twitter account into a book, expectations should be tempered. My favorite parts were the real-life examples of terrible writing by men, which is, of course, the bread & butter of Vondriska's account.

Thank you Sourcebooks via NetGalley for the ARC!

I enjoyed the biting satire this book offered when it came to how women are typically written by men in the literary canon. There were times that it felt repetitive, but the message was clear throughout which still made it an enjoyable read!

This book was a hilarious read and I encourage all readers, regardless of writing ability, to pick this up for a good, informative laugh.

A writer doesn't always see their own bias, but a reader can tell you stories. Romance novels, as long as I've been reading them, will tell you so much about how the author views relationships and partnerships, which are not always the same thing. Other novels will tell you how the author views the characters themselves. Meg Vondriska makes sure to highlight exactly how women are typecasted, belittled, judged, and objectified (with references!) to entertain the reader and help shed light on how women and femmes can beat a "prick with a pen" at their own game.

2.5 stars
A Tale of Two Titties is an exploration of common literary tropes, themes and plot lines that men have used for centuries to disparage and undermine women in their books. It also features commentary on workplace culture, advertising and general societal attitudes that are influenced by the way men write women. It’s written as a satirical guidebook for authors who want to adapt the ‘can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ mindset and write some truly one-dimensional characters. I think it’s a very clever format and the author’s wit kept me entertained.

On the surface this is the perfect non-fiction for me, as someone who consumes a lot of feminist non-fic and fiction, plus I read A LOT of books. Unfortunately this book fell short for me for a few reasons:
1. While the basis for this whole book is definitely based in historical fact, a quip the author keeps coming back to is to affect of ‘if you want to be a bestseller, be a man’ and this simply is not true anymore. This was definitely the case until fairly recently, and some of the female authors finding success also write women poorly, women are in the majority on the bestsellers list right now, so this just confused me.
2. This is short for a novel, and I still think the author tried to/had to beef up their ideas to fill the pages because there’s A LOT of repetition. It felt like at the beginning of every new thought, the author was giving us a mini introduction to the book again and I ended up skimming a bit.
3. This may be very minor but there was a line early on that really rubbed me the wrong way and put me off. When discussing the nuances of why women can’t speak up or clap back to misogynistic men, the author says that women risk career setbacks, while women of colour and trans women risk their lives. In what universe are women of ALL backgrounds and identities not being murdered by men? While I appreciate all feminist topics being discussed with an emphasis on intersectionality, this was a totally inappropriate and offensive comment.

Now that’s out of the way, I promise there’s good in here too! Given the way we have been primed to view women by the media from a young age, there were many irreverent and relatable moments in this book. The overall message and purpose of the book is very important, but I didn’t learn anything new.

This is such a funny and entertaining read! A Tale of Two Titties focuses on the ways that male authors have written women since the dawn of time but in a fun and approachable way.

A Tale of Two Titties by Meg Vondriska is an engaging and accessible vat of information on women's position in literature. I love how colorful and colloquial this book is. As a longtime lurker of @MenWritingWomen , this book consolidates the humor and outrage of being a female reader, writer, or person. While I'm not a writer, many (*ahem* male) writers could benefit from giving this a peruse - certainly before deciding to make your main characters female ... again (looking at you, King and Sagar). I enjoyed the satirical, tongue-in-cheek approach Vondriska takes throughout the book, and she's hilarious to boot. This book reminds me of the Guerilla Girl's books on women in the arts (high praise). Overall, this is a fun and engaging way to process and begin chipping away at the sexism that has plagued literature (and the larger world).

I really desperately wanted to like this book. The cover was intriguing, the concept was interesting, but the writing was not landing with me. This was unfortunately a “did not finish” for me. Maybe I’ll go back to it someday, but today is not that day!

Full of interesting lines, and tidbits about writing. I wasn’t exciting how much sarcasm would be layered in the pages, but it really worked in talking about feminist issues

narky, with a big helping of sarcasm. Written as a tongue in cheek handbook for women to write a best seller like their male counterpart, it also includes quizzes and a significant sampling of direct quotes from all the heavy-hitters used as examples to illustrate the author's points.

The best part of the book for me is that I felt less alone in my frustrations with men writing women badly and that someone is out there is calling them on it.

Formatting for the ARC was difficult to read as the footnotes were interjected within the main text, so the last half was skimmed.

A Tale of Two Titties: A Writer's Guide to Conquering the Most Sexist Tropes in Literary History by Meg Vondriska


A tale of two titties was a fun read, the title was interesting and caught my attention and after reading synopsis I had to read it. Now giving it a 3 stars was a dicey thing for me as most of the book was spot on about how male writers sexualise and objectify women and their bodies especially breasts.


Author has mentioned so many famous writers including Steinbeck who is my favourite btw but I never noticed the implied. So either we are so used to men doing it or women being objectified that it doesn't raise our concern in this particular regard. I was astounded, appalled and horrified, as well as laughing at points.

My only issue was it got repetitive and should not have been this long maybe because towards end I was really losing my interest and I wanted myself engaged till the end of the book but in the end I just couldn't. Also writing style was a bit haphazard or something was just missing in it, like it read like a medical research paper or something, I couldn't really put my finger on it but it also bothered me a bit.

If you look at most books even today, most are male centric,coz we live in a patriarchal world. It furiates me , no wonder the tone of the book is also furiating and satirical.

Thank you sourcebooks and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.

DNF’ed at 10%.

This has a lot of potential but unfortunately the excessive footnotes really doesn’t work well in the kindle arc format. The footnotes often show up before they are even referenced and the writing just ended up feeling very jumbled. I’m sure it’s better in the final version with proper copy editing!

This book was a much needed comedic relief...even if some of the content that has you laughing also makes you want to cry at the fact that it's true and based on real examples. The title is what first caught my attention of this book & the cover art was a very appropriate compliment.

The book is a fun way to talk about somewhat of a serious problem. It tackles what is a tension within the writing world (and lets be honest, the world in whole) where men are often able to obtain publishing deals much easier than women, for more money and without being pigeonholed into children or YA. Using a whole lot of satire, Vondriska makes light of the clear discrepancies between the expectations of male vs. female authors – and what is accepted by men that a female author would never live down the scrutiny for if they did the same.

It's an alarming and glaring look at something that is very often ignored and overlooked by our male counterparts. Men writing women is an internet sensation and Vondriska does a fantastic job of pulling together the evidence that is the clear gap in what it takes to succeed based on gender.

I love the workbook format that is used to relay the information and truly send home the points that she's making. Want to be a best selling author and be deemed one of the best of all time? Follow these steps to ensure that you never write a women with respect, dignity or most importantly...accurately at all!

The examples she chose to include from famous male authors are superb! I found myself cringing at the experts of work from authors the majority of us know like a household name, even if you aren't a reader. How they have been spoken to highly of yet might describe women's breasts as "two pleasure domes" is quite the interesting and hard reality to face.

I think what Vondriska is doing here is not only important, but very well done. I enjoyed the book as a whole and it was certainly the book that I went to when I wanted to read but also needed a good laugh. I have already purchased a copy for a friend who is a female writer and I can see it being a book I gift to other women in my life who have felt second tier to the bare minimum.

Thank you to NetGallery for the advance read copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

While I liked the concept (an exploration of the misogynistic tropes underpinning a lot of literature) I didn't love the format. It's presented as a mock guide to writing a bestselling book and includes "writing exercises" and quizzes at the end of each chapter laying out a trope steeped in misogyny. I appreciate that the author wanted to approach a serious subject with humor, but I guess it didn't quite hit for me.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the book.

This is essentially a satirical critique of the many humorous ways male writers describe women in their works. The book was funny and enlightening but it wasn't what I thought it would be. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley for an advanced ARC of this book

I found this book interesting and I do think it was educational in places but I don't think I was the audience for this kind of book and could not appreciate it as much as others could while reading it

this has the perfect balance of humor and snark for the aspiring female writer. Meg has wonderfully transferred her (formerly known as) Twitter account into a book that captures the patriarchal double standards that exist in publishing.

This nonfiction had made me laugh so hard and also mad me so angry and sad. Angry because we have to deal with this shit and sad because it is our reality.

Thank you, NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS (non-fiction) | Sourcebooks for this ARC. This was a funny little book. Not gonna lie, I chose this book based on the cover as many of you will. The book may or may not be what you expect to be about when you read it. Some things were funny, and some were a bit over the top. Yes, many men write ridiculous tropes about women in their books. I thought this book was going to be more feminist and women's history.

This was such a fun and important book! It was probably one of my favorite reads of the year. It will definitely be something
I can reference back to and reread. Great book.

While this book was absolutely spot on for how so many male authors tend to write female characters; this book itself was a small struggle for me personally to read. It was hard to stay focused on the writing when the juxtaposition was often oddly paced. But overall it was an interesting read and entertaining.