The Abundant Word

𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞’𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝.

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Before I tell you my rating, let me tell you something. This book literally DRAGGED that rating out of me after beating me up in the most meaningful way. It made it impossible to rate anything else. You know why?

This book made me angry. It made me think. It made me look at the world differently. It was a journey.

The story started out innocently enough. With a woman, Emily, who had feminist leanings and was mildly activist, but in that lost way that comes with a lack in conviction. Her life seemed to float along, without her ever having to address what that really meant. Until she met Tamsin.

That’s when, particularly in part two, the story took a turn. Emily made me want to scream with rage. I couldn’t stand her, I thought. Several of her biases were highlighted in the book, as a straight, White woman, in a subtle and significant way.

But even with that, as I read on, I realised something. There’s an Emily in all of us. A person that does ugly things. A person that is sometimes a jerk, despite thinking we are being righteous. A person that has to, at some point, have their foundations shaken and face all the awful parts of ourselves in order to eventually grow.

Through Emily, we learn what ‘Me Too’ really looks like, outside of the Twitter feeds and the news articles. We learn why it is important. Why we all need to be informed.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

TW: Sexual Assault, Recount of rape

Thank you @manilla_press@tandemcollectiveuk and @ms_jessica_moor for my copy and for having me on the readalong!

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Description

Format Read: Hardback

Pages: 320 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published: 26th May 2022

When Emily meets enigmatic and dazzling actress Tamsin, her life changes. Drawn into Tamsin’s world of Soho living, boozy dinners, and cocktails at impossibly expensive bars, Emily’s life shifts from black and white to technicolour and the two women become inseparable.

Tamsin is the friend Emily has always longed for; beautiful, fun, intelligent and mysterious and soon Emily is neglecting her previous life – her work assisting vulnerable women, her old friend Lucy – to bask in her glow. But when a bombshell news article about a decades-old sexual assault case breaks, Emily realises that Tamsin has been hiding a secret about her own past. A secret that threatens to unravel everything . . .

Young Women is a razor sharp novel that slices to the heart of our most important relationships, and asks how complicit we all are in this world built for men.