Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger edited by Lilly Dancyger. No Advance Reader Copies included. No affiliate links used. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger edited by Lilly Dancyger is full of anger, yes, but also nuance. The essays in this collection explore what it means to be angry, accepting your anger, how your anger is perceived by society depending on your race, religion or gender identity and so much more.
In her introduction, Lilly Dancyger mentions that her early edit suggestions for a lot of writers were about getting them to express their anger more rather than simply write around it, as many had been doing, which I think shows why this collection is so necessary. We do not talk about women’s anger enough.
The stand out essays for me are Lungs Full of Burning by Leslie Jamison, My Body Is A Sickness Called Anger by Lisa Marie Basile, On Transfeminine Anger by Samantha Riedel, My Name and My Voice by Reema Zaman, and The Colour Of Being Muslim by Shaheen Pasha.
Lungs Full of Burning sees Leslie Jamison realise that she is, in fact, angry despite years of insisting she wasn’t.
My Body Is A Sickness Called Anger is a must read for anyone wanting to better understand the experience of being a woman living with chronic illness and dealing with a medical system intent on disbelieving your pain.
In On Transfeminine Anger, Samantha Riedel writes brilliantly about how her relationship with anger changed before, during and after her transition.
My Name and My Voice is a powerful essay about how anger can be liberating.
The Colour of Being Muslim is an insightful look at Shaheen Pasha’s lived experience and the balancing act involved in expressing anger as a Muslim woman; being too confrontational risks being considered a terrorist, but being too quiet means being seen as an oppressed woman in need of saving.
Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger edited by Lilly Dancyger is published by Seal Press and is available in hardback and ebook format.
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