Other Girls to Burn

by Caroline Crew

Other Girls to Burn is a collection of essays that explores the relationship between women and violence within such contexts as the 2014 Isla Vista shooting, early Christian virgin martyrs (discussed in relation with modern true crime stories), mixed martial arts, and rape culture. Formally inventive and lyric leaning, these essays shift between cultural criticism and personal essay and cohere around a central motif of female mystics. With them, Caroline Crew asks, What does it mean for women to be complicit in the violence of the patriarchy? How do women navigate risk as well as revel in thrill? What does it mean to both fear and perpetuate violence?



The essays explore disparate cultural touch points, such as contemporary feminism, race, hagiography, the Salem witch trials, dementia, fairy tales, Eurydice, indie music, gender performance, Anne Boleyn, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, family dysfunction, and vaginismus, to name a few. Together, this collection is in conversation with contemporary nonfiction writers such as Maggie Nelson, Sarah Manguso, and Anne Boyer.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Essays

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2021

About the author

Caroline Crew is a writer and editor.

She edits the online poetry journal, ILK. She has written several chapbooks, and her full length poetry collection, PINK MUSEUM, is out from Big Lucks.

She holds degrees in English Literature from the University of St Andrews and the University of Oxford, as well as receiving the Robert T. Jones Scholarship at Emory University. Caroline completed her MFA at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she taught composition in the First Year Writing Program and creative writing at the Juniper Institute for Young Writers.

Her poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Conjunctions, Hunger Mountain and Black Warrior Review, among others.

Currently, she lives in London.

Reviews

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The meat asks itself: Am I the body or its labor? Am I the self or the fighter?”

I stand by my statement that poets are my favorite essayists. Don’t sleep on this incredible essay collection by Caroline Crew that blazes the intersections of the (female) body & violence through wrestling, true crime, fairy tales, saint-hood & more.

"The parade of perfect martyrs marches right on through history, taking on each era's peculiar beauty standards to arrive as today's parade of perfect victims." (91)

The collection culminates in the question: what is it we are pathologizing about womanhood?

For fans of Anne Boyer, Bassey Ikpi, Maggie Nelson.

[Citri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays that take you to unexpected places and will stick with you long after you put the book down. I especially loved the parts about female friendships, both the joy and sorrow that one experiences with different friends. It also made me examine my own interest in true crime as a woman and the author explained how I felt very well.

[Carly Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely obsessed with the delight and awe these essays provide. Crew writes through multiple approaches with each essay, showing versatility and vulnerability within every moment. It's been a book I've been recommending to everyone.

[Kat Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays that are poems. Standouts for me are "The Discomfort Index," "What I Should Consider...," and "Boys on the Radio." I would read "Origin Unknown" as a novel in a flash.

[Emily Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coming back to this one to reiterate: love an essay collection. Made me violently upset every time I opened it, and I looooved to open it. Women and violence, sainthood and boxing and the body. Super interesting and super moving.