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Part poetic memoir, part a long essay that considers how gender theory emerges from/ applies to /is lived on an everyday basis. The short chapters alternate snapshots of conversations and other social interactions, childhood and family memories, musings on gender and quite explicit sex scenes. I could not relate to all of the author's concerns about butchness/femmness and femininity, perhaps because times have moved on, perhaps because of different experiences and identities. Some of the sex scenes were very hot, but others (or maybe their repetition) was not so interesting. T. really liked it, but I feel a bit ambivalent, or perhaps indifferent towards it.

On reflection, perhaps I don't really trust Pratt as a narrator. She comes across as quite preoccupied with being cool and 'woke', and perhaps not 100% sincere - a banal example: at times she talks about not dressing feminine and being judged for it, not having worn a skirt for decades; but then every single date they go on she's got revealing blouses and dresses and high heels. I don't mean to be overly inquisitive: maybe they are different phases in her life, maybe she doesn't owe us that kind of coherency, but somehow given that gender identity is the theme here, this confusion made me lose trust, and thus also interest. To be fair, I'm not in a period of great concentration or patience.

In a nutshell, the author argues that there exists a fundamental gender data gap, and that this gap makes life harder for women, and harms society at large. The book presents evidence of this gap in different realms: planning (where decisions are based on the needs and behaviour patterns of a 'standard' person', meaning a man), on the workplace (where pressure to work long, unpredictable hours, poor maternity benefits, longstanding biases and lack of female representation at the leadership level) to design (where technologies and tools are tailored to men's bodies and priorities). I also appreciated the concern with different places and classes: although Perez never explicitly mentions capitalism or colonialism, and racism only rarely, some of her examples speak for themselves. There are many fascinating examples, and the author has a remarkable capacity to explain the ramifications of the gender data gap, its costs for women and society. However, I have three fundamental issues with the book.

• First, the author clearly understands data to mean quantitative, preferably statistical data. This is great (I too love that kind of data), and may a useful approach for a book that clearly hope to persuade people beyond the feminist circles, such as (man) policy-makers, CEOs or planners. However, given the tremendous contribution of women thinkers to the problematisation of positivism, it may have been useful to address, or at least discuss, this focus.

• Engaging with the broad arguments of feminist theory may also have helped the author to take a more nuanced approached to the gender binary. Granted, acknowledging the neither sex nor gender are binary, and that the relation between these sets of categories are complicated, may have 'muddled' the argument, and perhaps alienated some people in the audience. However, especially when dealing with sensitive issues such as health or gender violence, it seems problematic to completely ignore trans issues and experiences. And it isn't only trans people who are harmed by the binary: consider for example her discussion of parental leave in tenure-track systems (82-83). Citing a report by the NYT, Perez questions the family-friendly policy that gives academics one extra year to secure tenure for each child. Given the women use the extra time to care for the children, while men use it to publish, leaving childcare to their (usually female) partners, the policy benefited men more than women. I was not aware of this research, and found it interesting: what would a better policy look like? Perez believes the solution is to only allow women the extra-time, but that surely will only reify such unequal distribution of childcare, reinforcing the idea that looking after kids is a woman's job?

• More fundamentally, the basic premise of the book is that the gender data gap is responsible for sexism, or at least that addressing the data gap would help us close the 'inequality gap'. But is the problem really one of knowledge? Isn't it the case that the situations perfectly please those who have the most power to change it? An excellent example is Perez' discussion of Britain's austerity measures between 2010 and 2020 (p. 245). Based on data by the Women's Budget Group, she shows that budget cuts hit women twice as hard as men, with Asian women and single-mother being the most affected, and men in the richest 50% of households actually gaining from the cuts. 'So why is the UK government enacting a policy that is so manifestly unjust?' asks Perez. 'The answers is simple' - she assures us -'They aren't looking at the data'. That is clearly naive: virtually all those involved are men in the richest 50% of households (probably richest 1%), with enormous power. It isn't ignorance, it's politics.

The book is light on theory and definitions, aside from some quick clarifications on sex and gender in the preface. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: it will probably be appreciated by those who will hopefully read it. And the style is compelling: perhaps I could have done with less numbers and more discussion of those numbers, but I know many men who will appreciate her 'rational' style. I don't know if it is a convention or an editorial decision, but I was mildly annoyed by the ocean of reference given just as an URL.

Santa Vela, arguably the book's protagonist, is an enchanted house: its owner, Larah Corven, tried to escape there the ghosts of those who died killed by the weapons sold by her husband. She had the architecture changes into a maze of corridors, stairs and dead alley to confuse them, in vain. Years later, the house has become a girl orphanage managed by cruel nuns.

Each chapter of the book tells the story of a different character: girls, nuns, residents, parents. Each story is dark and tragic, there is no escape from the curse that seems to link all those who cross path with Santa Vela. The chapters could work as individual stories, with sister Priscia (the sadistic, fanatic head nun) and Mida (a rebel orphan, daughter of a witch) being the two recurring characters, linked not only by their being in the house, but also their conversations with God (presumably the same God, even though He tells them widely different things. It's a disturbing, self-obsessed God that predates on the girls and rejoices in their misery).

Once I learnt the author is Spanish I imagined it taking place in Spain, but really the settings are timeless and fairy-tale like: a world with witches, curses, plagues, travels on horseback and wagons. Despite its fairy-tale-like tone, it is one of the darkest books I have ever read.

Months ago I had listened to the Guardian Long Read excerpted from this book, and I had been idlly meaning to read the rest ever since. Then, I watched Hunger, Steve McQueen's film about Bobby Sands' hunger strike, and decided it was time.

It is perhaps the best journalistic book I ever read (admittedly, it's not a genre with which I'm particularly familiar). Clearly, the author imagines a British audience, and so the first part of the book is devoted to persuading readers that IRA fighters are first and foremost people, whose decision to join an armed force was mainly shaped by the circumstances in which they found themselves (or, as a former fighter puts it, that they would not have become IRA fighters had not they been born in Northern Ireland). The argument does not go as far as to claim that terrorism is in the eyes of the beholder, but the implication is at the very least that IRA fighters did not think of themselves in those terms.

The core of the book focuses on the number of lives wrecked by the troubles, by deaths, tortures, imprisonments, betrayals, mob violence, resentment. It is a thin line to tread - I can see many people thinking he's too soft on the IRA, and many others that by showing the sufferings of both sides he depoliticises the IRA's actions. Overall, I think one can really appreciate his journalistic commitment to report on the facts, whether or not they look good for one or the other party (also showing that the parties were not just two parties).

I have been on a serious Bechdel fan-girl kick. Tascha gave me this book as a spontaneous gift. I devoured it, and then worked my way backwards through her memoir, Are you my mother? and Fun home.

I'm writing this as an overall review, not really a summary, just some scattered remarks about my journey. First, it is amazing how Bechdel can keep retelling her life from different perspectives, using different lenses to make sense of things in a way that is entertaining. Second, I really like how in this latest once she really gets to the madness / banality / desperation of exercise culture, but does so from a point of empathy and personal involvement, so instead of coming across as judgemental she is insightful and compassionate (reminds me a bit of that article on barre). Third, maybe the fact that, on this third read, I found Are you my mother? fascinating (event the parts about therapy) is a sign of aging. Dense and slow, at times eye-roll inducing and far-fetched, often navel-gazing and irritating, but I didn't skip a single page. Fun home is an amazing twin-portrait of her and her father, sweet and angry. TCLS, I loved all three of them, all over again.