Good review of 'Hags' in the Guardian

Is it April 30th Walpurgisnacht ? Looks brilliant.

Finished this last night. Such a relief to see everything I have suspected nailed down and articulated so precisely.

Try being a black woman and dealing with this shit from childhood.

I must read Hags. I will be looking at it from an entirely different perspective of someone in their 80th year to whom a 50-year-old is still just a youngster and as someone who manned the barricades for equal pay, equal rights etc. in the 60s and 70s. All I know for sure is that I won't get angry - I will shrug and laugh because there is nothing new under the sun.

If you think it's annoying being identified as a Karen, wait a few more years and see what happens when you go to update your laptop and, as happened to me recently, the sales person,all of 20, speaks to you slowly and loudly as if you are deaf and just made your escape from the nearest care home. I let him pontificate for 10 minutes, then launched into a highly technical explanation of why his explanation of this particular laptop's merits was bollox and why treating this old crone as if she should be dribbling in a corner was not the way to make a sale. All the while smiling sweetly (of course) as I was just a dear little old know-nothing lady.

Not sure which is funnier - being hated as a Karen, or patronised as a walking corpse.

The shop in Chester had both yesterday, along with a few genderist books. I can’t afford hardbacks though, will have to wait 😏

Ha ha, love that @RethinkingLife !

I never think of those descriptions without this.

'Karen' and its widespread online use shows that this book is needed. There is no equivalent name for men who act the way 'Karens' are portrayed to act, even though men are more likely to complain, feel entitled and so on. That's because it is women who are expected to be silent.

So however the term was first used (against racist middle-aged white women, I have read), it is now just a way for even the wokest person to rail against all females and not get told off as sexist. I have seen women preface their online posts with "I'm not a Karen, but.." We are going backwards.

I expect whoever it is is identifying as righteous for putting her in her place as we speak.

(Or of course just a random bloke...)

Haha @ClaphamSouth I wondered exactly the same thing (suppose it might also have been the gardening chap tho).

But unbridled vitriol is definitely LOJs style

Yes, Time to Think was released last Thursday (23rd). I got the Kindle edition as it's easier to highlight and cut-and-paste from.

"shout about the Terfs and no one will notice you went to public school"

Oh my god, she's nailed that for sure.

😆

Xiaoxiong Hags isn't released until Thursday 2nd March, but Time to Think came out last Thursday (I think, last week anyway).

How have you lot already got Time to Think, let alone finished it - I went into two different Waterstones last week, on Thursday and Saturday, and neither of them had it in stock yet.

I will ask for Hags when I check back in store tomorrow (trying hard to support the high street and not to buy everything through Amazon but they're not making it easy!)

There's an archived copy here: archive.ph/6JVFU

Also reviewed by Janice Turner in the Times but I don't have a share token, sorry

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hags-by-victoria-smith-review-the-demonisation-of-middle-aged-women-qz639rzlj

It’s in book shops already? I’ve got it on preorder and it’s not supposed to be out till the end of the week. Oh well, that should give me chance to finish off Time to Think.

Great review! I'm skint at present but have two audible credits which are burning a hole in my pocket. I may have to spend them on Hags and Time to Think.

From Rachel Cooke's article: "Since I began writing this, I’ve received an email from a (young) man who writes to say that he considers my mere existence as beyond the pale. To pinch from Zadie Smith, doubtless this guy regards death, from his youthful vantage point, as appallingly anti-aspirational. But apparently, it will do very well for me: a bag, a bitch, a woman for whom he feels, with every fibre of his being, nothing but disgust."

I couldn't help but wonder if this was LOJ but I'm not sure he still counts as young.

The tone and approach of the pile on under the Guardian Books tweet of the review rather supports the premise of the book and the review......

Can't wait to read this book. We hags get way too much grief and have throughout history. We're witches, we're evil MiLs, we're TERFS, we're Karens.

We make the world function.

Just read the Hannah Barnes book in one go over the weekend - could not put it down.

I was surprised to see this on the Guardian homepage today. Usually they hide the Observer reviews that they don’t like.

I saw this in Waterstones yesterday, I didn’t realise it was already out. They had the Tavistock book too, I was gobsmacked 😆