KJ's Book Reviews

  Come As You Are:  The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Written by Emily Nagoski About 315 pages Originally published in 2015 Rate 4.5/5 One of my roommates recommend Come As You Are to me towards the beginning of the semester; I am really glad she did. Come As You Are focuses on women's experiences with sex, but I think everyone can learn something from reading it. Majority of the time, Emily Nagoski doesn't talk about the actual act of having sex, rather she talks about what goes into having good sex. Emily Nagoski starts off with a slightly brief anatomy lesson then she gets into the mental aspect of sex. Nagoski talks about the stress cycle, attachment styles, cultural views about sex, lube, desire, orgasm, and learning how to avoid judgment in the bedroom. The idea she pushes throughout the entire book is the fact that everyone is normal. We are all made of the same parts just arranged in different ways. "I am done living in a world where wo...

  Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity Written by Brenda J. Allen About 197 pages Originally published in 2004 Rate 4/5 I was introduced to Difference Matters in my Intercultural Communication Encounters class at Utah Valley University. Difference Matters corresponds with many subject matters within the classroom and in the real world. Difference Matters is formatted as a textbook, which might sound really dull to the majority of potential readers, but I assure you, it was not a waste of time. Brenda J. Allen brings her own life experiences into the textbook as well as other people's. As Allen communicates her experiences, she picks apart expects of the interactions and teaches us why difference(s) matters. In Difference Matters , we learn why power, gender, race, social class, sexuality, ability, and age matter when we are communicating social identities. "Humans engage in social processes to manufacture differences; they refer to dominant belief systems to co...