If your defense of Bernie is, “Bernie would never say that,” then you’re lying to me or to yourself. Of course Bernie would have said that. Men who pride themselves on being woke have said exactly that to me or within my hearing. I think nearly everyone I know has at least whispered the question: Can a woman win? None of us know yet if the answer is yes.

You: I’m trying to find the perfect gift for my Star Wars-obsessed friend/sibling/lover. I don’t know, I guess maybe they’d like a custom lightsaber or something?

Me, an intellectual: Baby Yoda.

This sheer meaninglessness, is one of the key overarching themes of Sophie’s Choice. It’s a book that seems frequently to yearn towards meaning and yet has strong undercurrents of nihilism.

This is the sort of thing you’re not supposed to do — wander around off-trail. I wonder if I’ve made a critical mistake, but I don’t feel particularly alarmed or concerned about the situation I’ve gotten myself into. Does that mean I’m rightly assessing that this is fine? I’m not that far off-trail, I know there are roads and ATV trails that crisscross this whole area, and I know which direction to head. Or is my nonchalance the same kind of unearned confidence that got that Into the Wild idiot killed?

Oh, what an interesting style/color. What does your <boyfriend/husband/male partner> think about it?

A. I don’t give a shit.

Sometimes I take selfies and I post them on the internet. I wonder if people will think I’m vain, but then I think that liking my appearance enough to be vain is itself a kind of victory.

And holy shit if this book had ended right there, I’d be writing a very different review right now. The vibrancy of their early relationship with each other, the slow creep of horror as things become more and more wrong in the Kagwa-Valentine household, the awful question of whether Emma might actually be right, the visceral brutality of the final scenes… It works. It’s good.

Male writers please take note, you really do not need to describe the shape and relative perkiness of the breasts of every woman who appears in your book. In fact, in most cases you need to describe the breasts of none of the women who appear in your book. I have no recollection of what color hair most of these women were supposed to have, but I can tell you they’ve pretty much all got perky tits.

Don’t all nonmonogamous relationships end in fiery disaster?

No, but you’re probably asking this question because you’ve heard about at least one that did. Your cousin’s best friend’s brother opened his relationship and then his wife left him for her new girlfriend, right?

What is ethical nonmonogamy?

Ethical nonmonogamy refers to any relationship which meets the following criteria:

1. It is not monogamous

2. All parties involved know that the relationship is not monogamous

3. All parties involved consent to being in a relationship that is not monogamous