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Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy
by Jill Soloway
With unbridled insight that offers a rare front seat to the inner workings of the #metoo movement and its aftermath, Jill captures the zeitgeist of a generation with thoughtful and revolutionary ideas about gender, inclusion, desire, and consent.
In this poignant memoir of personal transformation, Jill Soloway takes us on a patriarchy-toppling emotional and professional journey. When Jill's parent came out as transgender, Jill pushed through the male-dominated landscape of Hollywood to create the groundbreaking and award-winning Amazon TV series Transparent. Exploring identity, love, sexuality, and the blurring of boundaries through the dynamics of a complicated and profoundly resonant American family, Transparent gave birth to a new cultural consciousness. While working on the show and exploding mainstream ideas about gender, Jill began to erase the lines on their own map, finding their voice as a director, show creator, and activist.
She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy moves with urgent rhythms, wild candor, and razor-edged humor to chart Jill's evolution from straight, married mother of two to identifying as queer and nonbinary. This intense and revelatory metamorphosis challenges the status quo and reflects the shifting power dynamics that continue to shape our collective worldview.
"Starred Review. Soloway's sharp humor carries the day in an unusually kind and self-aware memoir that will both make readers laugh and leave them optimistic." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. An assumption-exploding, smart account of creativity, work, and a decidedly unconventional life." - Kirkus
"Fearlessly revealing, deeply felt, rigorous and compassionate, She Wants It offers an intimate portrait of Jill Soloway's remarkable life and, simultaneously, a portrait of the larger human struggle to create, from a revolutionary TV show to a revolution in the culture itself. It's a rare and, yes, an important book." - Michael Cunningham
"A funny and brutally honest book about what it means to be a woman and what it takes to be a creator, She Wants It is deeply personal but always universal in its unapologetic recounting of a life lived and raw talent shared." - Amy Poehler
"Jill Soloway writes with passion, fierceness, and vulnerability. In She Wants It we read an amazing story of changing worlds - both the one around them, which is forever altered by their groundbreaking series, Transparent, as well as the one dwelling deep within their own unruly heart. She Wants It tells the story of a revolution, both cultural and personal. I often had to pause to laugh, or cry, or simply catch my breath in wonder. Provocative, generous, and inspiring." - Jennifer Finney Boylan
"What an unbelievable pleasure to see the world through Jill's eyes and bear witness to their incredible journey as an artist, activist, parent, child, sibling, and uncontainable human being. Part memoir, part manifesto, pure magic. Read this book." - Van Jones
"Jill Soloway's writing remains unparalleled by any other when it comes to entertaining us while slyly changing our culture toward acceptance and equality. She Wants It opens our eyes and makes us giggle all along. You will savor every word." - Amy Schumer
"Most writers hide in memoirs, sharing little real stories. With generous openhearted honesty, courage, and compassion, Soloway invites us to hear true stories. They share the difficult painful revelations, triumphs, and failures. Listening to them, readers laugh, cry, love, and most important, learn." - bell hooks
"She Wants It brims with juicy gossip, vulnerable revelation, and rousing calls-to-arms. After I finished reading it, I went out and made my first movie. What will you do?" - Michelle Tea
"If anyone has led a more wildly interesting life and written about it more brilliantly than Jill Soloway, this devourer of such hasn't found it. Grab on, and grab hold! You'll be laughing and crying the whole way through." - Norman Lear
"This is a story about self-doubt, self-discovery, and the triumph of self-actualization. It is imperative reading for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of what it means to be Other in this world—what it means to discover who you are, to understand that each of us deserves happiness, and gathering the grit to go after it. I could not put this hilarious and heartfelt book down." - Chelsea Handler
This information about She Wants It was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jill Soloway is the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning creator of Transparent and I Love Dick. Their first feature film, Afternoon Delight, won the 2013 Directing Award at Sundance. Their work can also be seen in Six Feet Under, How to Make It in America and United States of Tara. An activist and artist, Jill cofounded 5050by2020, East Side Jews, and the spoken word series Sit n' Spin. Jill lives in Los Angeles.
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