Connie Schultz
I ended up admiring Traister and loving her book. In its best parts, it is a raw and brave memoir of a journalist who discovered that all is not well for women in America, and a description of how she and other young women are laying claim to their rightful place in the fight.
—The Washington Post
Liesl Schillinger
…a passionate, visionary and very personal account of the cultural ferment that accompanied the election of '08…[Traister] adroitly juggles a galaxy of new- and old-media sources. She draws her inferences from interviews, newspapers, magazines, news programs, "Saturday Night Live" and Comedy Central political shows…as well as from Current TV clips and stroppy Web sites…
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Who would have figured that the women who would benefit most from the 2008 presidential campaign would be the comediennes? Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton may have lost in their respective campaigns, but Amy Poehler and Tina Fey both gained in cultural stature for their biting imitations. According to Traister, staff writer at Salon.com, the rollercoaster ride of 2008 exposed an entrenched chauvinism in the media and a lesson for anyone who might assume that a female candidate would hold a monopoly on women's votes. The author bludgeons conventional political wisdom by trenchantly exposing Palin's strange triangulation of mainstream feminism, Clinton's need to appear vulnerable in order to appeal to women, and the precarious position of black women--some of whom were conflicted between supporting candidates who mirrored their gender or their race. Rising to the occasion, however, were women in the media, from Katie Couric, who--depending on your perspective--ruined or sainted Sarah Palin, to the sofa-bound political discourse of The View. Traister does a fine job in showing that progress does not proceed in straight lines, and, sometimes, it's the unlikeliest of individuals who initiate real change. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
"Traister does a fine job in showing that progress does not proceed in straight lines, and, sometimes, it's the unlikeliest of individuals who initiate real change." ---Publishers Weekly
The New Yorker
"Traister presents an excellent synthesis of a time ‘in which what was once called the women’s liberation movement found a thrilling new life.’
Ariel Levy
Traister brings her elegant prose and unique perspective—thoroughly feminist but never doctrinaire—to this absorbing personal exploration of the meaning of gender in the last election.
Curtis Sittenfeld
I didn't know what I didn't know about the 2008 election until reading Rebecca Traister’s smart, entertaining take on it. Well-researched, well-written, provocative, and insightful, BGDC is a high-spirited salute to feminism in its many forms.
Robert Draper
Rebecca Traister’s lively, insightful narrative discloses an under-reported layer of the 2008 presidential campaign—and in so doing makes the subject fresh and vital again. An important and disquieting book, but also a pleasure to read.
Katha Pollitt
In this riveting account of the 2008 election, Rebecca Traister negotiates the shoals of race and gender with exceptional grace and skill and establishes herself as one of the major younger journalists working today.
Eric Alterman
The startling intelligence and graceful prose of Rebecca Traister’s coverage of American cultural politics has been one of journalism’s best kept secrets during the past decade. With Big Girls Don’t Cry, she claims her place as heir to the tradition of Mary McCarthy and Joan Didion as she excavates the tectonic changes that lurked below the surface of most election reporting and illuminates events in a manner that will surprise political junkies and casual observers alike.
Daphne Merkin
Traister is a clear-eyed, whip-smart observer of the political scene, alert to the resurgence of identity politics as well as the recrudescence of feminism that marked the most recent presidential campaign. She has fashioned a remarkably engrossing page-turner of a cultural narrative, one which features outsize characters and unpredictable plot twists. Big Girls Don't Cry is a report on the 2008 election but more importantly it is a report on the way we think now. If you want to understand where we are going as an electoral entity—why Sarah Palin is the folk heroine du jour and why Michelle Obama has domesticated her free-thinking persona—read this book.
Anne Lamott
Rebecca Traister is the most brilliant voice on feminism in this country. I was totally caught up in Big Girls Don’t Cry from the first page, and couldn't believe how much Ms. Traister captured and illuminated a story with which I had thought I was so well versed: the 2008 election. She told it as if for the first time.
Slate.com
Traister's book masterfully reminds us that we have just lived through a historic moment when a woman, no matter how flawed she was, ‘came within spitting distance,’ of a nomination for president.
The Washington Post - Connie Schultz
I ended up admiring Traister and loving her book. In its best parts, it is a raw and brave memoir of a journalist who discovered that all is not well for women in America, and a description of how she and other young women are laying claim to their rightful place in the fight. . . . Such a youthful embrace of the women’s work yet to be done is exhilarating—for her generation and for mine.
NPR's Fresh Air - Maureen Corrigan
Superb.... Big Girls Don’t Cry is much more than an assemblage of these type of ‘boys on the bus’ campaign anecdotes. As anyone who’s followed Traister’s sharp and lively essays in Salon knows, her particular ‘beat’ is gender. What she does here is tease out the cultural narratives that came to wield so much power during the [2008 presidential] campaign and, finally, in the voting booth.... There’s so much…to be learned and argued over in Big Girls Don’t Cry…. Girls, these days, can not only run for president; they can also brilliantly analyze presidential campaigns, too.
New York Times Book Review
"A passionate, visionary and very personal account.
The Washington Post
I ended up admiring Traister and loving her book. In its best parts, it is a raw and brave memoir of a journalist who discovered that all is not well for women in America, and a description of how she and other young women are laying claim to their rightful place in the fight. . . . Such a youthful embrace of the women’s work yet to be done is exhilarating—for her generation and for mine.
— Connie Schultz
NPR's Fresh Air
Superb.... Big Girls Don’t Cry is much more than an assemblage of these type of ‘boys on the bus’ campaign anecdotes. As anyone who’s followed Traister’s sharp and lively essays in Salon knows, her particular ‘beat’ is gender. What she does here is tease out the cultural narratives that came to wield so much power during the [2008 presidential] campaign and, finally, in the voting booth.... There’s so much…to be learned and argued over in Big Girls Don’t Cry…. Girls, these days, can not only run for president; they can also brilliantly analyze presidential campaigns, too.
— Maureen Corrigan
Library Journal
Hillary Clinton concluded that her success in the 2008 primaries meant that children could grow up taking for granted that a woman can be U.S. President. When Sarah Palin then accepted her party's nomination for vice president, it revived the idea of a woman as President. Traister (Salon.com) here reflects on women's impact on the political process in 2008, the candidates, the media's sometimes sexist attention to Clinton and Palin, and voters' reactions to the candidates and campaigns. She looks at the complicated roles some candidates' spouses played and the media's challenge covering the possibility that we'd have an African American or a female President. Traister names several male correspondents who, in her view, displayed a significant level of sexist reporting and praises sound, professional coverage by numerous female correspondents. She quotes extensively from online media to support her views, thus providing broader perspective. VERDICT This will appeal to readers interested in the 2008 elections, women in politics, or media coverage of politics.—Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
OCTOBER 2010 - AudioFile
Traister’s nuanced analysis of gender politics in the 2008 election is handled superbly by narrator Kirsten Potter. Given the nearly two-year presidential campaign, there are ample sound bites that could have been overdone. But Potter maintains a solid presentation, providing inflection and tone but not outright impersonations of the wide pool of candidates. Her pacing and emphasis throughout the more detailed passages also make listening highly enjoyable. Traister’s research is extensive and filled with an array of quotes from new and traditional media. Her skill at teasing out recurring misogynistic themes and rhetoric will change many listeners’ views of the election regardless of whom they voted for. L.E. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
