Roxane Gay lives up to expectations in her novel Bad Feminist. The book is a series of anecdotal essays from childhood to the present that help frame her uniquely intellectual and simplistic views. Throughout the collection she elaborates the complexity of current events in stunning simplicity and shows how the pink loving author was shaped into the countercultural feminist she is today.

The title is based on her fundamental belief that “feminism is complex, evolving and flawed,” much like the author’s personality and those of feminist leaders. Throughout her collection she elaborates on her own path to begrudgingly accepting her title as a ‘bad’ feminist through realistic and universally appealing tales of womanhood, self-actualization and endurance. Gay comically spliced her interesting perspective on what being a “lady person” is like and gives a strong argument for the growing black feminism movement to continue on in this page-turner for pink lovers.

Gay’s insightful analysis of modern feminism in television shows like Girls and literature from the deliciously smutty Fifty Shades of Grey to the more obscure works of James Wood and young adult authors from a mutual childhood – tie together a 360 degree philosophy with current media exposure from the start. This concrete support remains the unhindered focus until contested by her hilarious side notes on things like her teaching career blunders, intersexual tension, competitive Scrabble and the witty yet childish styles that play into her self reflection. My personal favorite is Henry the Nemesis and her almost type written list on things common in female perspectives, specifically “How to be Friends with Another Woman”.

She also hits a deep and personal narrative I believe many young African American women can relate with. The seemingly long-shot dreams of fitting an American standard of femininity and embracing how “terrible [her] twenties were”, show a deeper feeling of universal  awkwardness and makes the book a safe haven for outcasts. She defines herself almost accidentally in her commentary about Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl character Amy – “Unlikeable women refuse to give in to that temptation. They are, instead, themselves. They accept the consequences of their choices and those consequences become stories worth reading.”

Gay in her current work proves why her story is worth reading in every page. She reaches across demographics with her comprehensive life lessons in common vulnerabilities, an eagerness to succeed, a yearning to understand and most importantly an inspiring endurance to push to the end. It’s one of the few books of the time that I feel gives a phenomenal light on how black “good girls who went to church” are challenged in this world while also introducing ways on how we can better focus on ourselves and what we universally give in and out of our shells.