Recommended to everyone and also fans of Roxane Gay, Brittney Cooper, and Rebecca Solnit. She applies this insight to an expanse of subjects, including how black women do not get positions at high prestige publications, in which she analyzes David Brooks's Twitter follows to highlight how few people in positions of power listen to black women. I loved how she always took her analysis one step further, like in her essay about beauty, how she refutes the neoliberal idea that we are all beautiful, and she instead asserts that we should question why we value beauty and who profits from determining what we consider beautiful.

Tressie McMillan Cottom addresses many topics within the realm of black womanhood, including beauty standards and whiteness, ethnic differences within the black community, socioeconomic class and assimilating into capitalism, and more. Without a doubt the best book I have read in 2019 thus far, Thick: And Other Essays is thick with wit, intelligence, and an assured self-awareness. She turns her chosen form into a showcase for her critical dexterity, investigating everything from Saturday Night Live, LinkedIn, and BBQ Becky to sexual violence, infant mortality, and Trump rallies.Ĭollected in an indispensable volume that speaks to the everywoman and the erudite alike, these unforgettable essays never fail to be 'painfully honest and gloriously affirming' and hold 'a mirror to your soul and to that of America' (Dorothy Roberts). This 'transgressive, provocative, and brilliant' (Roxane Gay) collection cements McMillan Cottom's position as a public thinker capable of shedding new light on what the 'personal essay' can do. Thick 'transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women' ( Los Angeles Review of Books ) with 'writing that is as deft as it is amusing' (Darnell L. In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom-award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed -is unapologetically 'thick': deemed 'thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less,' McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work. “ Thick is sure to become a classic.” - The New York Times Book Review

Named a notable book of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Time, and The GuardianĪs featured by The Daily Show, NPR, PBS, CBC, Time, VIBE, Entertainment Weekly, Well-Read Black Girl, and Chris Hayes, 'incisive, witty, and provocative essays' ( Publishers Weekly ) by one of the 'most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time' (Rebecca Traister)

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Thick and other essays