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Jessica Valenti

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Sex Object: A Memoir Kindle Edition

by Jessica Valenti (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 1,007 ratings

Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs

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New York Times Bestseller - An NPR Best Book of the Year

“Sharp and prescient… The appeal of Valenti’s memoir lies in her ability to trace objectification through her own life, and to trace what was for a long time her own obliviousness to it…Sex Object is an antidote to the fun and flirty feminism of selfies and self-help.” — New Republic

Author and Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a darkly funny and bracing memoir, Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes from the every day to the existential.

Sex Object explores the painful, funny, embarrassing, and sometimes illegal moments that shaped Valenti’s adolescence and young adulthood in New York City, revealing a much shakier inner life than the confident persona she has cultivated as one of the most recognizable feminists of her generation.

In the tradition of writers like Joan Didion and Mary Karr, this literary memoir is sure to shock those already familiar with Valenti’s work and enthrall those who are just finding it.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of June 2016: Speaking up for women's issues with a bold and unflinching voice is nothing new for Jessica Valenti. Her new memoir, Sex Object, evokes this trademark approach, along with insights into her personal experience, in order to explain how sexism has shaped generations of women. Many times throughout this book I was wonderfully uncomfortable with the ideas and points Valenti puts forth--and then other times I found myself angry (at myself) when I saw unexpected parallels in my own life experience. Readers who haven’t experienced Valenti's writing before may be shocked by Sex Object--but not disappointed. --Penny Mann, The Amazon Book Review

Review

“Adrienne Rich wrote, ‘When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.’ In Sex Object, Jessica Valenti tells her truth with stunning vulnerability and courage, defying easy answers and daring us to look away. You won’t forget it.” (Irin Carmon, New York Times bestselling author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg)

“Valenti uses the personal to shed light on a universally female political problem. There is an awakening that happens as a woman reading this book.” (Bust Magazine)

“This aching account of attempting to live, date and work while female is a brave admission of vulnerability.” (Washington Post)

“A zesty, zeitgeisty memoir.” (O Magazine)

“[Valenti’s] memories are relatable and raise important questions about how society treats and views women.” (Bustle)

“Yes, All Men (And Everyone Else) Need To Read ‘Sex Object’” (NPR)

“Powerful.. more than the sum of its parts… a bold and unflinching road map of Valenti’s journey to become the woman she is.” (Publishers Weekly)

“An entertaining and shocking memoir from a leading feminist writer.” (Booklist)

“Jessica Valenti is widely known as a feminist leader- with this stunningly brave and often funny memoir, we get a chance to know her as a human being. This is an incredibly powerful book. I can’t recommend it loudly enough.” (Jill Soloway, writer, producer, creator of the Emmy-winning show Transparent)

“Valenti writes in impressively honest detail.” (Salon)

“Amazing...a profoundly raw and honest book.” (Ezra Klein, Vox)

“A bold undertaking… consciousness raising. Valenti is one of America’s best-known and often divisive feminists.” (The Guardian)

“Powerful...incredibly readable... she wants to take us back to a place of telling stories.” (The Nation)

“Jessica Valenti’s powerful personal story offers unique perspective on how sexism and patriarchy manifest themselves in the daily lives of American women. Sex Object is a necessary read for women and men alike.” (Jamil Smith, Senior National Correspondent, MTV News)

“A powerful literary memoir that expertly makes the case for feminism today.” (Harper's Bazaar)

“Deeply moving, honest, and unflinching, Sex Object secures Jessica Valenti’s place as one of the foremost writers and thinkers of her generation. Her personal story highlights universal truths about being a woman, and makes the case for why feminism today is an unstoppable force.” (Cecile Richards, President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America)

“I began reading Jessica Valenti’s Sex Object before the most recent tape (as of this writing) leaked of a presidential candidate bragging about sexually assaulting women for fun, but there could hardly be a better validation for the subject.” (AV Club)

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B015CYFEX6
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dey Street Books; Reprint edition (June 7, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 7, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2405 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 172 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #148,036 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #46 in Feminist Theory (Kindle Store)
- #424 in Biographies & Memoirs of Women
- #480 in Education & Reference (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.0 1,007 ratings

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Jessica Valenti

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Jessica Valenti - called one of the Top 100 Inspiring Women in the world - is a feminist author & columnist. Her most recent book, Sex Object: A Memoir, was a New York Times bestseller.

In 2004, Jessica founded the award winning blog Feministing.com, which Columbia Journalism Review called “head and shoulders above almost any writing on women’s issues in mainstream media.”

Jessica’s articles have topped the most-read lists at The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Guardian, and The Washington Post. She's also written for Salon, Bitch, Ms. Magazine and The Toast.

Jessica has been interviewed on The Colbert Report, profiled in The New York Times magazine, and is a widely-sought after speaker.

She has a Masters degree in Gender Studies from Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter. You can find her writing at jessica.substack.com

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Paris A.

Wow

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2016

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Wow! This memoir is the sharing of Valenti's life as a woman who feels objectified and attacked on a daily basis. She goes back into her childhood and tells stories of men flashing her, or groping her, or saying suggestive comments to her on the streets. She walks you through her teen and college years where you can see how those moments imprinted on her psyche and created the woman she was in the world – hard-partying, promiscuous, and yearning for love. And, then how she became a feminist writer and blogger, as well as how she became a mother. Through the whole book she's blunt and at the end you feel like someone ran over and shook you hard. But, then at the same time you realize you needed to be shaken. She is telling the story of every woman in America, who even if they haven't lived exactly her life, know what it is to feel objectified and attacked and criticized, just for being women, and then objectified and attacked and criticized a second time when they defend themselves. I'd call this a must-read because it will really make you sit and think. Plus it's quick, easy read.

7 people found this helpful

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Jeff Willis

Worth reading, but definitely more biography than social commentary.

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2018

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This was an incredibly honest and brave memoir, but the book description made it sound like there would be more analysis and social commentary than there ended up being. I expected more of that from an author who's been "leading the national conversation on gender and politics." The memoir itself was interesting and shockingly honest; I was just hoping for a little less storytelling and a little more examination. That notwithstanding, it's still an important read for anyone who wants to better understand the kinds of scenarios and situations many women have to endure on a regular basis.

8 people found this helpful

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Claire

An important read and premise that I wish had been more cohesive

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2016

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I purchased this book because I love Valenti's writing, and I was excited for a book that's published goal was to help explain and understand what it means to grow up under the constant stress of objectification. The first 1/2-2/3 of the book is a very interesting study of this. But, once she brings her experience as a mother into the picture, the tone and shape of the narrative change completely and I was unable to understand where the book was going or why it had abruptly stopped making sense to me.

Despite it sort of falling apart for me, I do think that this is the most important line I have ever read in a work of non-fiction:

"We know that direct violence causes trauma; we have shelters, counsellors, services. We know that children who live in violent neighborhoods are more likely to develop PTSD. Yet we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them."

A valuable read, yes, but not the best structure

38 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

There Are No Pat Answers Here.

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2016

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This is a remarkable memoir. She could have made herself sound a lot neater, a lot tidier, and made the whole thing more comfortable. This is a messy, raw, real, honest book. This is not a memoir composed of either self-mythologizing or pat storytelling. In fact, it is as little about the author herself as a memoir of its kind can be. Rather, it is a memoir about how the personal is political, one that is grounded in a sometimes startlingly unvarnished honesty about the personal. It's about sex and sexuality, about women in the world and the things that go unsaid about that experience, and about a lot of other things, too. I've read her other books and her columns appear in my social media feeds and I'm a fan. But this is something else, something deeper, more unsettling and engaging than anything that has come before. This is an important book.

99 people found this helpful

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IndependentThinker

Tragic.

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2016

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A book about the misery that is all too common for cis women, whose bodies seem to betray them at every turn as society does its best to prime them to accept a masochistic position.

I cannot understand how her husband continued to put her at risk after she and her daughter almost died. Were both of his hands amputated? Jessica mentions how he can compartmentalize and hide his feelings while she has PTSD. Given that his body has remained uninvaded/sacrosanct/solely for his own pleasure his entire life, of course he cannot understand what she--or her daughter--has been through. He comes across as a robotic selfish boor. This book does not explain why such a smart vibrant woman is drawn to such a person, but I suppose that this is another element of what makes her writing so powerful: In a world where one is a sex object, any straight male that sees a brain in the body is a viable mate no matter how cold and insensitive.

Sad, sad book. Best to Jessica and Layla.

2 people found this helpful

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Savannah A Brown

Inspirational Feminist Memoir

Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2016

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Valenti's memoir is an inspiration! I couldn't put the book down. Her words forced me to face the painful truths I already knew about society that I had not previously chosen to investigate within my own life. I found this memoir extremely relatable in the sense that I didn't have to experience the exact same scenarios she describes, but rather I found that I had experienced many situations that had been caused by the same societal gender scripts and their subsequent learned insecurities that are forced on women. I like the fact that Valenti chose to write this book using realistic language that feels conversational or as though we are discussing unpleasant memories with a friend whom we can confide in. I'm sure that this book took a lot of courage to recall many of the instances she describes and respect her for openness, as well as for pushing the boundaries of feminist memoir in such a manner that shocks, comforts, and empowers readers all at the same time!

7 people found this helpful

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Gabriele A. de Almeida

Veio todo amassado e batido, solto numa caixa muito maior!

Reviewed in Brazil on July 17, 2023

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O livro é incrível, a entrega foi um lixo!

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SRE

Necesario de leer

Reviewed in Mexico on July 19, 2019

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está fuertisimo pero me ayudó mucho

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brockfrenchie

Touched me on an emotional level I didn't know existed ...

Reviewed in Canada on July 16, 2017

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Touched me on an emotional level I didn't know existed and reminded me that there are other versions of the world that might have been possible for me if it wasn't for toxic masculinity.

2 people found this helpful

apphia

Gripping and easy to grasp

Reviewed in India on February 10, 2019

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I could easily relate with this book when I read a chapter of it in a bookstore and I was hooked. The price in the bookstore was about 700/- + but I managed to get a great deal on it on Amazon and I'm glad it's in my bookshelf.

The last couple of chapters are more about the author and one can empathize and the first few chapters are hard hitting and relatable

Alessandra R.

Perfetto

Reviewed in Italy on May 3, 2018

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Ho comprato il libro usato ed è arrivato in perfette condizioni. Imballaggio sicuro e non rovinato.
Non si vede neanche che era usato.
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