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Book Review: Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve by Drew Afualo

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Book: Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve by Drew Afualo

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Feminism

Publisher: AUWA Books

I’m going to start this review out with a personal story that led me to Drew Afualo’s account on TikTok a couple years ago. I myself had accidently gone viral on a post that was entirely unrelated to the bookish material I usually create, and it was a fever dream of an experience. I have since deleted the content because it was not relevant to literature, and it warped my algorithm. It threw off the organic growth and community I had worked hard to build, and my account was never quite the same. 

The first hour or so after going viral was exciting, but then I spent two days dealing with 800,000+ interactions on my post, and I became exhausted by the parasocial activity. For every few people positively engaging with my story, there was an aggressive troll right behind them. I’m fairly immune to other people’s opinions of me for a variety of reasons, but this experience left me with a heavy feeling after witnessing how unnecessarily ruthless and desensitized a subgroup of society had become. 

When the dust settled, I took some time to reflect upon the phenomenon of going viral. I looked through the data and analytics and concluded that most of the antagonists on the thread and in messages were males 25-54 years old from the United States. For reference, my typical audience is predominantly females 25-54 years old from the US and Europe. I had clearly entered a layer of Tiktok I had not experienced before, and I had some questions. Why was this new demographic of people that my video reached so disillusioned over a woman telling a story about a cruise trip gone wrong? Why did they take time out of their day to make comments about the way I looked, how I spoke, or to make threats on my life because my post wasn’t palatable enough for them? I suppose the simple answer is—because they could. 

Some might say that the downside to being on the internet is that it leaves you open to criticism. This is true and fair to some extent. However, the argument that a person can simply say or do anything they want to a female creator with no consequence because she exists in a public space is preposterous. What do we teach young women and girls when we tell them to stay invisible and fly under the radar to avoid harassment instead of holding men and women accountable for their malevolent behavior? Why are we not kicking internet tough guys off platforms instead of telling women to remove themselves and their stories from public spaces? I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that there were also some women involved in the trolling I experienced; however, out of the 800,000+  interactions, there was only a small percentage of female keyboard warriors.

Enter my TikTok algorithm introducing me to Drew Afualo’s content. Drew initially gained a large following on the platform for clapping back at insulting comments and misogynistic videos across the internet. Then and now, she fiercely defends the right for women to have a safe and supportive presence in their online communities free from misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, body-shaming, and other intolerant messages. As of today, Drew has over 8 million followers on her TikTok alone, runs successful media endeavors like her podcasts, and recently published her book, Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve. Naturally, this was an automatic read for me. 

I wish Loud had been published when I was a teenager. The closest thing we had to a feminist manifesto for young women in the 90s was Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher. Pipher gave us insight into some of the societal issues that young women faced through her lens as a therapist, but the book was about awareness of a problem and parenting techniques to address it. In my opinion, that book was written more for parents of young women versus for the young women themselves. Afualo’s book is written for the girls. It is a fiery, empowering story from a fellow woman that has and continues to rise above the pressures of the patriarchy. In Loud, Drew Afualo shows us one perspective of how women can thrive by decentering men and putting one’s own self worth above society’s view of a woman’s worth. 

One of my favorite things about Loud was Drew’s account of growing up in a Samoan family, and how their matriarchal culture shaped her own self-esteem, her view of women, and her beliefs regarding equality. Reading the important things that Samoan culture values and puts on a pedestal was so refreshing in this day in age.

In her memoir, Afualo encourages women to be loud—to not disappear back into the shadows of the patriarchy. She also encourages us as women to support each other and call out both men and women that feed into societal beliefs and practices that do not support gender equality, body diversity, inclusion and women’s rights. Drew shows us how setting boundaries and staying true to herself—even when it was not well-received by anti-feminists—set her up for a successful career, relationship, and overall well-being. She shows us that we can do that too. I think everyone—men and women included—should read Loud for an unfiltered and authentic lesson in feminism. 

Finally, it is also worth noting that AUWA is the publisher that took on Drew’s book. AUWA is Questlove’s imprint, and it has a great mission statement:

After reading Loud and looking further into the imprint, I will be keeping my eye out for future releases by AUWA, and reading other books they have published.

View Loud on Amazon | Bookshop.org | Books-A-Million | Audible | Kobo Rakuten

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