I hesitate to call my thoughts on this book a review, for several reasons. First and probably most important, I am white and it's not my place to critique these women's thoughts and experiences on being a woman of color. I in no way want to speak over these women. Second, I am reading this at the very beginning of my education on racism, intersectionalism, and other -isms that don't affect my life as a white person, so I don't have a lot of other context with which to view these writings. And third, this is a collection of writings by a lot of different women with different racial and class backgrounds, and that makes it really hard to review.

I found this book incredibly emotionally compelling. All of the writing, whether it be poetry or personal essays, was powerful and insightful. In some ways it helped me understand things I didn't before, and in others it felt like it was handing me things that I wasn't yet equipped to understand. Much of it was surprisingly relevant to me, even though I'm white and not really a woman. I got a fuller understanding of women of color's perspectives on the mostly white women's movement (and, I'll admit, a bit of white guilt over my role as a white feminist). A lot of the writers talked about their families, especially their relationships with their mothers, and as I read, I actually found myself reframing my own relationship with my mother, which was an unexpected benefit.

I mentioned at the beginning that I don't have a lot of context to view these writings through, and I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. This book reads like a foundation for a lot of things - feminist theory, queer theory, and how women of color should fit into the feminist movement. I think going forward, having read this book early will give me a lot of context to read from.