A strikingly fresh cultural critic. (Ron Charles Washington Post)

Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there. (Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?)

Gay is my favorrite current writer. (Jessica Valenti Guardian)

Let this be the year of Roxane Gay. (Time Magazine)

Roxane is a powerhouse of a writer. She's really punk in her approach and her book Bad Feminist has liberated a lot of women by making it clear you can be a conflicted, complicated woman and still identify with feminism. (Lena Dunham)

Smart readers cannot afford to miss these essays, which range from socially significant art (Girls, Django in Chains) and feminist issues (abortion) to politics (Chris Brown) and why Gay likes pink. (Library Journal)

As Bad Feminist proves, Gay is a necessary and brave voice when it comes to figuring out all the crazy mixed messages in our mixed-up world. (?20 New Nonfiction Books That Will Make You Smarter? Flavorwire)

I just read Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist in one plane ride. It's brilliant. I am deeply grateful for it. Please read this book. (Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) via Twitter)

One of our sharpest new culture critics plants her flag in topics ranging from trigger warnings to Orange is the New Black in this timely collection of essays. (O, the Oprah Magazine)

Refreshing . . . [Gay's] greatest gift as a writer is energy, enthusiasm - sheer gusto. She loves bad television, and enjoys terrible films, and is overjoyed by an unexpected triple word score. Her writing feels alive. You might not always agree with her, but you are always interested to know what she thinks. (Helen Lewis New Statesman)

'Pink is my favourite colour. I used to say my favourite colour was black to be cool, but it is pink ? all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I?m not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue.'

In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of colour (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny and sincere look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.