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.

This was a perfect book. I loved how funny it was and I loved the workbook aspect of it as well! It was very engaging and the artwork was fun!

★

This is the first time I ever picked up a book purely because of its pretty cover and / or punny title.
And it will be my last!


What I expected (based on the description)
↳ A history of how women have been presented in literature
↳ Bestselling works— hopefully many current ones to see how this problem persists nowadays, as I usually tend to read female authors— which contain sexist tropes
↳ Satire

What I got
↳ Little history of women in literature, reserved mainly for the end. Discussions of things such as female directors being snubbed at the Oscars (a very real issue!), but this has no relation to a work about sexist tropes in literature
↳ A lot of dated works, many from 13+ years ago. Very few published in the last 5 years (timely relevance is important!)
↳ An author who acted the same way all men supposedly act, and called it satire?


Criticisms:
[+] The last few chapters is where the book gets on track. The author discusses some history of female tropes in literature and why they’re problematic in the real world. Had the book’s prior analysis of the literary muses been tightened up and injected into these last few chapters, along with a further study of their history in literature and more inclusion of recently-published works, this could’ve been an effective book.

[-] The writing was sloppy, repetitive, and long-winded. This book should’ve been capped at 150 pages.



Etc.
Who is this intended for?
↳ Women are generally well-aware of how men perceive us, whether in real life or in media
↳ The tone is not welcoming to a male author or, I’d argue, any male (which means they will not read this book but if they do they’ll put it down quickly)

Which leads me to…

What is the goal of this book?
↳ To point out sexist tropes?
↳ To spark change in how women are portrayed in media?

How do you expect to achieve whatever your goal is when there is no clear intended audience, and when the audience it is reaching (women) is already familiar with how they are portrayed?

Also!
It is my personal experience and observation that has led me to believe that tactfulness is part of effectively calling someone else (or an idea, institution, etc.) out. With a quote like “This section is about stooping so far to their level that you become one with the earthworms” (among a book-length amount of other, more petulant quotes) it is clear that this book has no tact.



All that to say: The redeeming qualities of this book are its cover design and punny title.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the arc!

A Tale of Two Titties is a humorous critique of how male writers have historically depicted women in their books. There are plenty of authentic examples from current authors, from Stephen King to classic John Steinbeck, that serve to make the author's point - of the continued misogynistic tropy representation of female characters in fiction. It includes literary analysis, interactive exercises, and commentary.

Both funny to read and also useful for any male writers looking to make a vague attempt at not writing terrible stereotypes. Also couldn't agree more with the question of why we're still being taught about male writers from 500 years ago and not female writers from the last 5 years.

This book is laugh out loud, pee your panties funny. The author has an amazing grasp on how poorly women are portrayed by so many male authors and brilliantly showcases it with wit and sarcasm. I could not believe how many obnoxious tropes exist out there, but she quotes actual authors and their books as evidence. Obviously I’m reading good books b/c I had never read any of those she mentioned so I hadn’t been scarred by such terrible and mysogynistic descriptions of women.

But Meg wanted to be sure women like me weren’t left out in the cold should we decide to become writers and need to know EXACTLY how to correctly write women. If you’re a fan of women with a wicked good sense of humor who are creative and intelligent writers, pick up this book. It won’t disappoint.

this was really fun! this would be a perfect pick for a “girls and gays” book club!

the satirical voice was entertaining and insightful, and the structure of this work was incredibly creative and engaging. I love the interactive elements of this and the sarcastic prompts.

the footnotes and margin scribbles were the highlights for me, and I found myself laughing out loud multiple times

as someone who wants to write but has felt a block in doing so, this was a very fun way to consider overcoming that and begin to brainstorm various methods of presenting feminine presenting people in my own writing

also just a poignant reminder to think critically about the ways in which women are written by male authors and the intention of including them

I now feel fully qualified to describe any character with a plethora of fruit-related metaphors!!

silly and an enjoyable read

thank you net galley for the uncorrected proof!

A Tale of Two Titties is a study on women's representation in literature and a satirical guide to learning how to "write women like bestselling male authors do-stereotypes, tropes, objectification, and all-so you can start dismantling the system from the inside." It includes literary analysis, interactive exercises, and commentary.

I enjoyed the expose on certain male authors and learned a lot about them. It was initially a funny read.

I'm not really the target audience for this book, but it sounded interesting. I think I would have rated it lower if it wasn't for the importance of the topic.

The people who need to read A Tale Of Two Titties, the ones it applies to and mainly refers to, are highly unlikely ti read it.

While it covers an important topic, it quickly loses its humor and becomes painfully repetitive. That repetition took away from the topic.

It took me forever to read, and I debated DNF'ing it a number of times. I decided not to because women deserve better representation in literature. We deserve more than to be basic tropes and poor stereotypes; only there to support male characters.

There are authors, of all genders, who write women in a positive way and give female characters leading roles. Same as there are non-white, non-male bestselling authors. Just as there are men who write women just the ways Meg Vondriska says in this book.

Hopefully one day soon, women will be more than a set of ripe cantaloupes to certain male authors.

I received an eARC of this book from @netgalley. This is my unbiased review.

Although I think the full effects of this book cannot be felt on a pdf (it is a workbook, after all), I think the sentiments come through clearly enough. The conversation it kickstarts is an important one, and I'm impressed by how Vondriska translated her viral Twitter profile onto the page.

This book is a lot of fun overall but does have some hits and misses. I liked the juxtaposition of the different ways of writing different genders. I think the book isn't sure what it wants to be and tries to be a humorous insight into writing, a personal memoir and also a guide to writing. It has a bit too much happening and makes it unnecessarily long.

It is still fun and if you like the subject matter and jokes about how men write women (spoiler: poorly), you will likely enjoy this one.

I first saw this book on Netgalley just after having had a conversation with a friend about how badly some of the male authors we’ve read write women. So I was quite excited to pick this up.

I feel like the subject matter isn’t new to me so I did expect that I wouldn’t find a whole lot of new information in this book. Nonetheless, it felt like a good compilation of both things I’ve known and new information (among other things, there were a few authors mentioned whose books I’ve had on my TBR for a while that I think I’ll now de-prioritise, if not remove altogether…), and I liked that there were references to back up the statements made in the book.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the book was hindered by its formatting:
1. page turns between chapters took at least 8 seconds on both my e-reader as well as my computer, which made me not want to return to it for nearly two months
2. on any page with footnotes, displayed on the side in a grey box, my eyes were first drawn to them, which broke up the flow of the reading for me
3. though my e-reader has a stylus and usually PDFs can be annotated, this book could not - bit of a bummer given just how much space the writing exercises took up in the book
But these are (mostly) things that will not be a problem with a physical copy of the book once it’s out, and I could see myself buying a copy to gift to a friend in the future.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review

Honestly, this was really a mixed bag for me. I love an angry woman hardcore liberal feminist more than anyone, but I feel like the format that worked so well on Twitter did not translate well in this book. I enjoyed some of the content, including the section about the muses and how women over time have been written by men into different genres but overall felt that the pacing and organization of the book was a bit all over the place. I also enjoyed a breakdown of how the patriarchy has impacted the portrayal of women in novels and how that is reflective of both social values and men’s thoughts about women and their inherent value. The ebook format really didn’t work in the workbook format for this book, it was difficult to follow along with and slightly out of order. Overall enjoyable. I am interested to see who the primary audience for this book will become

This book, A Tale of Two Titties, by Meg Vondriska, is an absolute riot. As someone who enjoys writing, I found it to not only to be helpful, but also laugh out loud funny. It may technically be aimed towards literally anyone other than male writers, but I think even cishet men could enjoy the playfulness and education within this book. And if they can’t, they should. But I fear many men would be very disgruntled after reading just a handful of pages…

I think my favorite elements of this writing guide are the actual quotes from literature written by men she peppers through the book to illustrate her points. Not that I love the terribly worded scenes written about women, but the author is able to find some of the most horrifically funny examples of toxic masculinity EVER.

This book is also so much more than education and instruction; it’s a fully formed workbook for writers. Writing prompts, quizzes, and exercises are included throughout. There’s even a word search and multiple Madlibs to enjoy! So much fun. Very engaging and interactive.

I’d say the only potential issue I had with A Tale of Two Titties was the use of boobs, bra sizes, and other patriarchal stereotypes of what a woman should be and how she should dress. Does the author have to categorize the processes of her book in breast/bra sizes? She did speak to the fact that nonbinary and trans people need better representation. I’m guessing that the playful use of antiquated feminine tropes was just that…playful. Perhaps it was meant to keep things light and humorous while the content themes weighed heavy? Regardless, it would have been interesting to see how Vondriska could have worked in more creative, diverse terminology. But I get it, it’s all very intentionally sarcastic.

Overall, I got a kick out of this book. As I read my ARC, I knew I’d like to get my hands on a physical copy so I could fill out its blank pages lined for the writing prompts. It would certainly be a hilariously fun option for a book club!

A big thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for gifting me the opportunity to enjoy this ARC.

A Tale of Two Titties, by Meg Vondriska, is set to be published and available on July 23, 2024.

DNF at 12 %. The formatting is so abysmal I can’t continue and the content is not interesting enough for me to force myself through it.

A very humorous look at how men write women and how women can write women more like men. I especially enjoyed the exercises throughout the book.