nonfiction book review Archives

How White Christian Nationalism Led to the Insurrection: A Review of Preparing for War

June 11, 2023June 10, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

I held off on buying and reading Preparing for War until I met Bradley Onishi at my organization’s conference, the Summit for Religious Freedom, in April, because I couldn’t imagine that there could be more to say about Christian Nationalism that hadn’t already been said. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—he proved me wrong.

A Revolutionary Feminist History: A Review of Women, Race & Class

May 28, 2023August 12, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

It is not uncommon in school to learn about women’s suffrage. Most of us are familiar with the names of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton because of it. As far as feminist history, this is often the beginning and the end of the story. If we want to know about the lives of women under slavery, the role that Black men and women played in achieving women’s suffrage, the treatment of working-class women by suffragists, and the stances that Black women took on the abortion and anti-rape movements, then we have to look elsewhere. Angela Davis’s 1981 masterpiece Women, Race & Class is where you can find all this and more. High school and college classrooms around the country would do well to add it to their syllabi.

Reframing Sex, Consent, and Pregnancy: A Review of Ejaculate Responsibly

May 21, 2023May 21, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

Gabrielle Blair’s book Ejaculate Responsibly has been praised online as a much-needed shift in the way that we talk about abortion. That seems appropriate, as the book’s subtitle is literally A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion.

The Case for Trans Liberation: A Review of The Transgender Issue

March 26, 2023March 25, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue: Trans Justice is Justice for All is the first book I’ve read that is solely dedicated to the trans issue. Only… trans people are not an issue at all. They are millions of people fighting to survive. Faye’s pointed and ironic title is the first way that she flips the mainstream treatment of trans people on its head.

Dreaming of a Free Future: A Review of Becoming Abolitionists

March 5, 2023March 7, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell was my first step in my own journey toward abolitionism. I started reading it days after the footage of Tyre Nichols’ murder became public. I’ve known since 2020—embarrassingly late—that policing was a racist institution, and since then I’ve hovered around the “defund the police” area. I didn’t take a hard stance because I didn’t know enough about abolition. But Nichols’ murder, in which five Black cops with body cams used their hands to murder someone, pushed me over the edge. Reform and defunding don’t work. We need abolition.

The Right Way to Be Bisexual: A Review of Bi

January 29, 2023January 29, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

I was so thrilled to discover Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw last Nonfiction November. My shelves desperately needed some color, and I’d never heard of any other books specifically focusing on bisexuality.

After reading it, I’m wondering if my fellow bisexual readers would be better off without Shaw’s bi guide. She wrote it simply because it “didn’t exist,” so now the only new popular book dedicated to bisexuality is, in my opinion, not that great.

The Birth of Roe: A Review of Jane Against the World

January 22, 2023January 21, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

In the post I wrote one year ago, Why the March for Life is Not Pro-Life, I remarked that Roe v. Wade wasn’t likely to see its 50-year anniversary, and I was right. It is a heavy weekend for abortion rights supporters, but that is all the more reason for us to continue to fight back.

What White Male Supremacy Means for the Rest of Us: A Review of Mediocre

December 18, 2022March 17, 2024Rebekah Kohlhepp

I should have liked Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo. I loved Oluo’s first book, So You Want To Talk About Race, and I always learn so much from similar books on racism and feminism.

The White Power of the Damsel in Distress: A Review of White Tears/Brown Scars

December 4, 2022December 2, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

Ruby Hamad’s 2020 book White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color is a paradigm-shifting work that combines history, personal experience, and media analysis to show how the tears of white women are far from harmless. If you think you know feminism—or even if you think you know intersectional feminism—you must read this book.

Does Abortion Harm Women? A Review of The Turnaway Study

November 6, 2022November 5, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

In 2007, Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion upholding a ban on one abortion procedure performed later in pregnancy, seized an opportunity to weigh in on the emotional and mental state of women who have abortions. He wrote, “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.” Clearly, in 2007, there was a serious need for reliable data on the consequences of abortion.
Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study, p. 4