my skin is clear. my gpa is up. spring has come early. i'm hydrated. i have been cured of my nearsightedness.

i could not have d r e a m e d up a more perfect book.

this book contains: trans women, gay women, bi women, straight women, pan women, black women, asian women, native american women, middle eastern women, white women, autistic women, disabled women. there are living women and dead women and women who are so dead that it's like, maybe she was born around the year 350? there are women i've heard of and women i've long obsessed over and women i'd never heard of because SOCIETY IS UNJUST.

the art is beautiful, whether it's the comic-style panels that make up most of the book or the two-page spreads at the end of every entry, all of which i want to Frame And Hang But Also Print On The Backs Of My Eyelids.

i've been struggling to read a bit this month — no book could catch my attention. i opened the package containing this yesterday, and must have kept it in the back of my mind since, because i picked it up today without thinking. and didn't put it down. through dinner or cleaning or cookie-baking or anything else.

i needed this book in childhood, and i needed it as a teenager, and i need it now and i'll continue to need it forever. i know absolutely that i'll return to this book always.

this is going on my all-time favorites list. this is a book that i will recommend to all women, and all men, and all people of all genders because it is so important and beautiful and necessary.

as i finished this book, i got choked up. because it's over, and because it is such a gift.

at the end, Pénélope Bagieu includes a list of 30 more badass women, and oh my god if this world is worthy of loving Bagieu will write a book for them, too.

bottom line: maybe i will come back and write more later, because i have the feeling i will never be done talking about this book.

thank you, thank you, thaaaaank you to fierce reads for the ARC