Too Much
How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today
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Narrated by:
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Suehyla El-Attar
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Rachel Vorona Cote
About this listen
Lacing cultural criticism, Victorian literature, and storytelling together, "Too Much spills over: with intellect, with sparkling prose, and with the brainy arguments of Vorona Cote, who posits that women are all, in some way or another, still susceptible to being called too much" (Esmé Weijun Wang).
A weeping woman is a monster. So, too, is a fat woman, a horny woman, a woman shrieking with laughter. Women who are one or more of these things have heard, or perhaps simply intuited, that we are repugnantly excessive, that we have taken illicit liberties to feel or fuck or eat with abandon. After bellowing like a barn animal in orgasm, hoovering a plate of mashed potatoes, or spraying out spit in the heat of expostulation, we've flinched-ugh, that was so gross. I am so gross. On rare occasions, we might revel in our excess - belting out anthems with our friends over karaoke, perhaps - but in the company of less sympathetic souls, our uncertainty always returns. A woman who is Too Much is a woman who reacts to the world with ardent intensity is a woman familiar to lashes of shame and disapproval, from within as well as without.
Written in the tradition of Shrill, Dead Girls, Sex Object, and other frank books about the female gaze, Too Much encourages women to reconsider the beauty of their excesses - emotional, physical, and spiritual. Rachel Vorona Cote braids cultural criticism, theory, and storytelling together in her exploration of how culture grinds away our bodies, souls, and sexualities, forcing us into smaller lives than we desire. An erstwhile Victorian scholar, she sees many parallels between that era's fixation on women's "hysterical" behavior and our modern policing of the same; in the space of her writing, you're as likely to encounter Jane Eyre and Lizzie Bennet as you are Britney Spears and Lana Del Rey.
This audiobook will tell the story of how women, from then and now, have learned to draw power from their reservoirs of feeling, all that makes us "Too Much".
©2020 Rachel Vorona Cote (P)2020 Grand Central PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Rachel Vorona Cote's debut is a whip-smart fusion of cultural criticism and deeply compelling personal narrative, packed with insights on everything from wedding bands to mental illness. Exploring all the many ways women have been bound and limited throughout history and into our current moment, Too Much is ultimately a joyful, satisfying, and educational celebration of women and their beautiful excesses." (Julie Buntin, author of Marlena)
"Readers whose tastes run from George Eliot to Lorde will embrace the book's feminist message." (Publishers Weekly)
"A fascinating exploration of how literature and pop culture have constructed (and exploded) our expectations of modern womanhood, this book is as gloriously defiant as the women it profiles. It's a necessary read for anyone who's ever wondered whether her 'muchness' is too much." (Robin Wasserman, author of Mother Daughter Widow Wife)
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I was born in the 50s, sexually active in the mid 70s
- By Pixel on 08-22-22
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The Odd Woman and the City
- A Memoir
- By: Vivian Gornick
- Narrated by: Vivian Gornick
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same.
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Yet another Gornick masterpiece
- By Lo on 01-14-23
By: Vivian Gornick
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Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
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over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
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Last Days at Hot Slit
- The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin
- By: Andrea Dworkin, Johanna Fateman - editor and introduction, Amy Scholder - editor
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin was a caricature of misandrist extremism in the popular imagination and a polarizing figure within the women's movement, infamous for her antipornography stance and her role in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s. Last Days at Hot Slit brings together selections from Dworkin's work, both fiction and nonfiction, with the aim of putting the contentious positions she's best known for in dialogue with her literary oeuvre. It includes “Goodbye to All This” (1983), a scathing chapter from an unpublished manuscript.
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Almost perfect reading
- By Paul on 04-02-20
By: Andrea Dworkin, and others
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The Creation of Anne Boleyn
- A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen
- By: Susan Bordo
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.
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Most Enjoyable Biography--Win!
- By Roswatheist on 03-29-14
By: Susan Bordo
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Square Haunting
- Five Writers in London Between the Wars
- By: Francesca Wade
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.
By: Francesca Wade
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Unrequited
- Women and Romantic Obsession
- By: Lisa A. Phillips
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The summer Lisa A. Phillips turned 30, she fell in love with someone who didn't return her feelings. She soon became obsessed. She followed him around, called him compulsively, and talked about him endlessly. One desperate morning, after she snuck into his apartment building, he picked up a baseball bat to protect himself and began to dial 911. Her unrequited love had changed her from a sane, conscientious college teacher and radio reporter into someone she barely recognized.
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Great book! So-so narrator....
- By ToluGrace on 04-14-15
By: Lisa A. Phillips
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Conundrum
- By: Jan Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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This remarkable memoir is the classic account of the transgender journey. It is all the more extraordinary because it is the life story of a figure who, it seemed, seamlessly and publicly charted a course through the English establishment - James Morris, outstanding journalist, historian and travel writer, famed for a peerless writing style. But all the while he was concealing a very different inner world: from the age of four he felt that, despite his body, he was really a girl.
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Beautiful memoir
- By Gabriel Smith on 07-25-22
By: Jan Morris
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On Freedom
- Four Songs of Care and Constraint
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.
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Just great
- By Kristi Strong on 12-14-21
By: Maggie Nelson
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To Have and to Hold
- Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma
- By: Molly Millwood
- Narrated by: Molly Millwood
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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A clinical psychologist’s exploration of the modern dilemmas women face in the wake of new motherhood. When Molly Millwood became a mother, she was fully prepared for what she would gain: an adorable baby boy; hard-won mothering skills; and a messy, chaotic, beautiful life. But what she did not expect was what she would lose: aspects of her identity, a baseline level of happiness, a general sense of well-being.
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Pretty good
- By C Sandell on 03-07-21
By: Molly Millwood
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For Your Own Good
- Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
- By: Alice Miller
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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For Your Own Good, the contemporary classic exploring the serious if not gravely dangerous consequences parental cruelty can bring to bear on children everywhere, is one of the central works by Alice Miller, the celebrated Swiss psychoanalyst. With her typically lucid, strong, and poetic language, Miller investigates the personal stories and case histories of various self-destructive and/or violent individuals to expand on her theories about the long-term effects of abusive child-rearing.
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Should be required reading for everyone
- By Timothy on 05-15-18
By: Alice Miller
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Passing
- By: Nella Larsen
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1929, Passing is a remarkable exploration of the shifting racial and sexual boundaries in America. Larsen, a premier writer of the Harlem Renaissance, captures the rewards and dangers faced by two Negro women who pass for White in a deeply segregated world.
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If not for the Ending
- By William M Storm on 04-23-12
By: Nella Larsen
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Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed
- Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the main topics of cultural conversation during the last decade was the supposed "fertility crisis" and whether modern women could figure out a way to have it all - a successful, demanding career and the required 2.3 children - before their biological clocks stopped ticking. Now, however, conversation has turned to whether it's necessary to have it all (see Anne-Marie Slaughter) or, perhaps more controversial, whether children are really a requirement for a fulfilling life.
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Am I the only sane childfree woman in here?
- By J. Malouin on 09-29-15
By: Meghan Daum
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A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
- By: Alicia Elliott
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated as a mind spread out on the ground. In this urgent, visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of the personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas experienced by her so many Native people. Elliott's deeply personal writing details a life spent between Indigenous and White communities - a divide reflected in her own family - and engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, art, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, and representation.
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Well written, heartfelt, revealing
- By KWK on 07-15-24
By: Alicia Elliott
What listeners say about Too Much
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Julia
- 03-09-20
Or, how to earnestly love life, with Examples.
At my house we are deep in a Ramona revival. My mom loved the whole series, I did, my son did and now the next generation is getting on board. I may have had more examples if sincere, non ironic love of life and an understanding that the rules were made up than the author did -- my childhood included a great deal of hard science fiction including among other tidbits that world building could go different -- children could sue their parents for divorce and still have the resources to survive to become adults themselves, as one example.
Go to the library, using this book as a reading list. Swing by the science fiction section and round out for great examples. Read with sympathy the many examples that many of us had to endure as well.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Zack
- 05-02-20
From The Yellow Wallpaper to '07 Britney
Part memoir, part study of how Victorian gender norms still permeate society today. Cote draws from examples in literature and in popular culture, running the gamut from "The Yellow Wallpaper" to Britney Spears's 2007 public meltdown and controversial conservatorship. These case studies make Too Much interesting and enjoyable to read even as it addresses weighty topics. Cote is also incredibly candid, drawing from her personal life to guide the narrative — her path in academia, her failed marriage, other personal struggles. If you've read other books in the feminist/gender studies genre, or if you've been a woman existing in the world, I'm not sure that any of these insights will surprise you or feel particularly new or enlightening. But Too Much is still a good addition to the body of work, and Vorona Cote brings a fresh and candid voice as both scholar and memoirist/essayist.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Snef
- 03-15-20
So glad this was recommended to me!
The narration is engaging and dynamic, with the narrator employing various tones and affects to convey varied perspectives of the book's chapters. The author's analysis is incisive and solid. Would be fantastic reading material for a women's studies or gender studies course.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Mary K Foster
- 06-03-20
~*ESSENTIAL*~
Too Much is, hands down, the most important book I’ve read in years, and I cannot recommend it enough, not just to my fellow “too much” bodies, but to all audiences as a case study for witnessing (in both generously personal and well-wielded academic terms) how cultural customs of subtle and overt gendered social violences are embodied, re-crafted for their time, and passed down as strict scaffolding over the top of descendant bodies (which Cote is very clear to flag and honor in terms of visible and invisible privileges, racial experiences, and sexual orientations, among other identities she seeks to include.) For me, Cote’s book shared validation and solidarity after my own decades of “calm down,” “lower your voice,” “don’t make a scene,” and a myriad of exponentially more painful, manipulative strictures. It’s not you, Too Much seemed to say to me with every gesture towards Cote’s well-wrought critical genealogy of inherited gendered confines, and it’s not *just* you, Too Much seemed to say to me with every honest, vulnerable, clever, and often wickedly witty moment of Cote’s thoughtful personal narrative. If you seek an “easy read” or “cute, feel-good memoir/ sagely wisdom after personal quest” book, while those narratives are wonderfully important, Too Much is not for you. However, if you, too, are at your wit’s end in a world where equal pay is STILL controversial, where convicted rapists get out of jail because they miss steak, where sexual predators get to be President, Presidential Candidates, and Supreme Court Justices but the most experienced politicians in the country lose out for the same offices because they are women; if you, too, are actively exhausted by the heinous double standards applied to women-identifying persons (and quadruple standards applied to women of color and trans women) and cannot fathom why we know more about the ocean and the moon than we do about treating female bodies for PCOS and endometriosis and you just want to see clearly how centuries of social trauma have stacked the deck against women, Too Much is with you and for you. Go forth.
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- sam
- 07-25-23
Boring and basic
This is the most insufferable piece of feminist critique I've read in a really long time, the author gives lip service to intersectionality and focuses solely on able bodied white women. As a disabled woman, listening to an abled person use medical trauma undergone by their mother as some sort of point of pride was disgusting.
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