All these April showers and exponential lack of vitamin D has us craving something happy, funny, and endorphin-releasing. A pick-me-up if you will. And who better to pick us up than Amy Schumer with her semi-autobiographical book and collection of personal essays The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo. This New York Times Bestseller, released in 2016, addresses some serious subjects such as gun violence, sexual assault and consent, domestic violence, Schumer’s troubled relationship with her mother and her father’s multiple sclerosis… but all from her raw and humorous perspective, of course.
Schumer has dealt with a lot of criticisms for her stand up comedy and some subject matter from her show Inside Amy Schumer. Criticisms that her male counterparts may not face? But her seemingly inappropriate sense of humor and her willingness to tackle of sometimes taboo topics (see essay topics above) put her in the category of ground-breaking. And although she insists that this book should not be categorized as memoir, autobiography, or self-help, she offers some very personal stories and some very relevant advice (i.e. money, self-employment, sex, love, etc).
“Blending such insights with her signature vulgarity and openness, ‘The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo’ is fun, thoughtful, and very funny, just like the rest of her output. And like her other material, Schumer is revealing and vulnerable, but it’s her willingness to be unapologetically herself that makes the book such a wonderful and engaging read. By the time she addresses the titular lower-back tattoo, she’s provided a spectacularly fleshed-out self portrait, showing herself as powerful and flawed and human as anyone else, in a way that women are taught never to be. It’s one more ‘fuck you’ to the gendered expectations from a woman who crafts stories and jokes out of them better than anyone else.”
We hope you’ll read with us this month, and she your thoughts and progress using #booklymark. Happy reading! And just in case you were wondering, no, this is not an April Fools joke.
thebooklyclub.com 