Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

19 reviews

zydecovivo's review against another edition

adventurous informative tense slow-paced

4.5

Malala and I are very close in age, so I assume that is why I didn’t know who she was until after she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (no, I didn’t even know why she had been nominated at the time). Learning about her campaign for girl’s education around the world intrigued me and I have wanted to read her autobiography ever since. It is somewhat unfortunate that I did not find the time until recently. 

The book itself is structured in the form of a flashback. It begins just as Malala is shot on her school bus om the way home after exams. It then goes all the way back to when Malala’s father was a child and his struggle for his own education before going through the events that shaped not just Malala, but her family as a whole, and finishes during the family’s exile in Birmingham. There are some minor flashbacks within the initial one, but they are generally small and short memories. 

As an American, the most important things this story brings is perspective. American history and news is generally never critical of the United States. But I Am Malala shows how the US government can be like making a deal with the devil and why Pakistan, as well as many other countries in the Middle East and surrounding area, distrust it. This does not excuse the Taliban for the violence they cause or the Pakistani government for their inability to protect Malala (and many others). But the best way to empathize with people and understand where they are coming from is to learn their history and see things from their perspective. I also got to know Malala much better than any third-person summary of an interview that I’ve read previously. It’s interesting to see our similarities and differences and think of what I was doing at the same age, just in a different country. 

There are only two critiques I want to mention. First, there are sections that drag a bit because they are essentially lists. They vary from lists of accomplishments to people to hardships. As an audiobook listener, I was able to tune these out and never really lose the narrative. I also found the narration of the book to be a bit flat. While the narrator’s pitch and intonation fluctuate, they seem to move in the same cadence with every few sentences, making for a long and somewhat repetitive 10 hours. 

Overall, I still enjoy the book and would recommend it to anyone looking for other viewpoints on the Taliban and conflicts in the middle east that are not 100% biased towards the United States. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

Moderate: Misogyny, Body horror, Confinement, Grief, Violence, War, Colonisation, Mass/school shootings, Blood, Islamophobia, Death, and Deportation

Minor: Animal death and Sexual harassment

meghan1111's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Misogyny, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Classism, Death, Grief, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Animal death

rapunzelholly's review against another edition

hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Gun violence, and War

rhiannon814r's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Misogyny, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Hate crime, Murder, Grief, Death, Religious bigotry, Medical content, Sexism, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Incest

bashsbooks's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

3.25

This book was fascinating, and I am in awe of Malala's spirit, faith, and drive. My major issue with it, however, is that I can see - very clearly - that Christina Lamb collaborated on this. It reads, at many times, like a history of Pakistan (specifically a history of Pakistani relations with the West). It feels as though information about Malala, her family, and her experience are tossed in here and there, rather than the other way around. I realize that some of that is so Western readers have context, but I think it went into a distracting amount of detail. I would love to read something Malala has written on her own, without a hovering need to make Westerners understand every bit of it via overexplanation.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Medical content, Misogyny, Violence, War, Death, Gun violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Xenophobia, Murder, and Suicide

Minor: Torture and Animal death

-Colorism (many asides about skin lightening) -Suicide in the context of suicide bombing -Political assassinations (both attempted and succeeded) -Terrorism

saadamansayyed's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

 A poignant exploration of her fight for women's education, culminating in her October 2012 shooting in a school bus, and the traumatic aftermath that followed. Malala's memoir is unabashedly Malala in its spirit — full of honesty and youthful optimism. This updated version includes an update preface and an interview in the appendices.

While people may have different personal opinions about Yousafzai, one thing is clear — her courage and her determination for her purpose is worthy of being inspired of. In spite of all that was done to her and said to her, Malala used her voice for the cause of peace and education.

The book takee us all the way back to 1969, when Ziauddin Yousfazai, Malala's father, school owner, educational activist and her greatest mentor, was born in Shangla. Chronicling her father's early days followed by her (then seventeen-year) life, the book takes you to the beautiful lands of Swat, once known for their magnificence and which were turned into terrible places to be by the miltiant violence in the area.

The book uses simple language to tackle difficult subjects, doing so with maddening elegance and a sense of honesty. The book needs some work on pacing, but when was real life paced perfectly? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Genocide, War, Gun violence, and Physical abuse

tiastravels's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, War, Religious bigotry, Grief, Gun violence, Death, Murder, Violence, and Misogyny

TW: Chapter 27 - surgery & injury (graphic)

pulita's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, Gun violence, Violence, Sexual violence, and Murder

allieslay's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.0

i loved this book.it was a gift from a family member, the story is so inspiring and i am glad i read it when i was younger. it is eye opening to learn about different cultures and their treatment of women. malala is a brave woman and her story definitely shaped my life today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Misogyny

andrikkk's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Colonisation, and Medical trauma