MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Forthright and uncompromising, Anuradha Bhagwati narrates her memoir with same strong voice that her prose exhibits. Bhagwati takes listeners through her life as a Marine after graduating from Yale. Following an honorable discharge, Bhagwati dedicated herself to fighting the military’s culture of gender discrimination and sexual abuse. She recounts intense and painful experiences during her service, sharing incidents of misogyny that led to her work fighting social injustice. Throughout, Bhagwati never aligns herself with easy left or right political sides; she sees allies and calls out threats across the spectrum. Listeners unfamiliar with military culture may find some moments of the story difficult, but this is in keeping with Bhagwati’s uncompromising style. Her direct approach to this audiobook is a service to all listeners. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - V. V. Ganeshananthan
Bhagwati's memoir…offers a distinctive lens on the Marines: She is South Asian, bisexual and a forceful, frank writer…Bhagwati writes beautifully about the body, describing everything from the pleasures of the basketball court to martial arts training in the Marine Corps with brutal clarity…Bhagwati is interested in forgiveness; she is generous, earning our trust by offering understanding—and a scrupulous detailing of good works—even to those she criticizes…She offers critiques of politicians, the military, her fellow veterans and the media. But she does not lapse into self-righteousness because she does not spare herself. The book is at its most powerful when she writes about who she became in response to the violence the military trained her to commit. Ultimately, Unbecoming is a chronicle of letting that violence go.
From the Publisher
Anuradha Bhagwati chronicles with admirable candor the examination and reconstruction of her identity, a journey taking her to Yale, the Marine Corps, and eventually the halls of Congress. If you want to understand the seismic changes in US military culture over the past decade, read this book.” —Elliot Ackerman, author of Green on Blue and Dark at the Crossing
“An insightful story about a daughter of immigrants who tries to find her place in this country, all the while enduring racism, homophobia, and sexism. Anuradha continues to fight for what is right so everyone can achieve the true American Dream: equal rights for all.” —Specialist Shoshana Johnson, US Army, ret., author of I’m Still Standing
“In her memoir Unbecoming, Anuradha Bhagwati powerfully depicts the forces that shaped and drove her as an unrelenting advocate for women in the military, fighting to expand opportunities and to reform the military’s treatment of sexual violence. It is a testament to the Herculean effort needed for progress to happen, and of the work that is yet to be done.” —Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment
“Anuradha Bhagwati’s Unbecoming addresses the proverbial dilemma of confronting traditional expectations as a South Asian daughter. But Bhagwati—who grows up in the heart of the West and comes-of-age in New York City where popular culture holds sway—reckons with bouts of self-hatred, as she comes to terms with the complexities of identity. She renders a vivid examination of sexuality, education at Yale, the brutal rituals of training at Quantico as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, sexual harassment and disrespect coded into the military machine, yoga and meditation, reentry into civilian life while dreaming as a Marine, and psychological struggles in a VA hospital whose staff is ill-trained and unprofessional. Bhagwati delves into gut-level truth, and a reader is wholly engaged. The memoir’s narrator is fully initiated, and her one-of-a-kind voice plumbs multiple avenues for social justice. Unbecoming is an act of becoming.”— Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet of Neon Vernacular
"Unbecoming is so much more than your typical military memoir. As an advocate who led the charge on exposing military sexual assault and supporting women's access to ground combat assignments, Anuradha sheds light upon how change actually happens in Washington, especially when resistance is fierce and the stakes are high." —M.J. Hegar, American Air Force Veteran and bestselling author of Shoot Like A Girl
“A raw, fearless, openhearted chronicle of one woman’s journey through the center of white male violence and out the other side. In confronting herself as unsparingly as the military powers she took on, Bhagwati has written the rare page-turner that will not only make you want to be a better person but also teach you how.” —Jaclyn Friedman, feminist activist and author of Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All
"Anurada Bhagwati has written a captivating and vital book, one that seamlessly marries compelling, insightful personal narrative with her astute critique of how the systems that shape our lives are failing us. It’s a must-read."— Soraya Chemaly, activist and author of Rage Becomes Her
"First-time author Bhagwati pulls no punches with this uncompromising memoir . . . [Her] candor and razor-sharp writing are in full evidence throughout her gritty and well-paced memoir." —Publishers Weekly
“[An] honest and unflinching memoir...[Anuradha’s] candid story pulls back the curtain on a hidden world in which highly capable women who thrive on the challenge of being a soldier are hindered by the men who surround them.”— Kirkus Reviews
"Unbecoming is stunning meditation on what the process of becoming a gentle but commanding feminist badass actually looks like. I was, by turns, floored, amazed, inspired, educated, and uplifted as I joined Anuradha on a journey of what it means to be a queer Brown person navigating new and fraught paths to the American Dream." —Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
"[Anuradha] Bhagwati’s book stands out most as a chronicle of overcoming psychological trauma...The book is at its most powerful when she writes about who she became in response to the violence the military trained her to commit." —The New York Times Book Review
"While reading a book to review, it’s usually useful to fold over a page's corner to make it easy to come back, to reflect on each noteworthy passage...But then you find yourself folding down the next page, and another, and another, until more than half the book is folded down, rendering the tactic useless as a reference but testimony to the story's potency." —Los Angeles Times
"Bhagwati’s fight is both incensing and inspiring." —Booklist
"Her powerful memoir is about pushing yourself beyond your limits." —PUREWOW
"Remarkable and radical in all the best senses." —Barnes & Noble (BN.com)
"Unbecoming brims with the ebullient Bhagwati's fierce humanism, seething humor and change-maker righteousness... Anuradha Bhagwati's fiery memoir is about serving her country—both during her Marine Corps days and through her activism afterward." —Shelf Awareness for Readers
"Every person interested in how the military should recruit, train and retain women must read Unbecoming. And every leader in the armed forces should pick up a copy to better understand how misogyny, sexual harassment and sexual assault hurt the all-volunteer force." —MILITARY TIMES
MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Forthright and uncompromising, Anuradha Bhagwati narrates her memoir with same strong voice that her prose exhibits. Bhagwati takes listeners through her life as a Marine after graduating from Yale. Following an honorable discharge, Bhagwati dedicated herself to fighting the military’s culture of gender discrimination and sexual abuse. She recounts intense and painful experiences during her service, sharing incidents of misogyny that led to her work fighting social injustice. Throughout, Bhagwati never aligns herself with easy left or right political sides; she sees allies and calls out threats across the spectrum. Listeners unfamiliar with military culture may find some moments of the story difficult, but this is in keeping with Bhagwati’s uncompromising style. Her direct approach to this audiobook is a service to all listeners. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-12-11
How the challenging, complex world of the Marines turned a woman into an activist.
After graduating with honors from Yale, Bhagwati left her graduate studies at Columbia to join the Marines, a move that shocked her stern Indian parents, both of whom were well-respected economists. In this honest and unflinching memoir, the author briefly chronicles her early years before moving on to share the highs and lows of her time as a Marine. She discusses the brutal physicality of the training and how she pushed herself as far as she could in order to excel at every level. She often outcompeted the men in her unit and loved the strength she found deep inside herself. Bhagwati also bares the details of the sexual harassment she and other female Marines experienced, a situation that was—and still is—commonplace in many areas of the armed forces. When she left the Marines, she realized her career had left invisible yet permanent scars; she suffered from depression, low self-esteem, and a lack of sexual desire, among other ailments. Like other veterans, she turned to the VA for support, where she received mixed results. This led Bhagwati to start the Service Women's Action Network, which advocates for military sexual harassment victims, and she also helped change some government policies regarding women serving in combat roles. Running throughout the narrative is the author's palpable sense of confusion, dismay, and anger at the way women are treated in the military, particularly in the predominantly male domain of the Marines, and how these feelings affected her life as a civilian. Her candid story pulls back the curtain on a hidden world in which highly capable women who thrive on the challenge of being a soldier are hindered by the men who surround them.
An intense, fierce woman generously shares her instructive experiences as a Marine and how her service time turned her into an activist for women's rights in the military.
