Unbound

 

I'm starting to wonder if the podcasts I listen to are secretly conspiring to make me buy books.

Unbound is an example of another book I hadn't heard of until I heard Tarana Burke on a podcast (Glennon Doyle's podcast this time.) Halfway through the episode, I hit pause and opened another tab to order this book.

Not enough people know Tarana Burke's name, but they absolutely should. She's the originator of the Me Too movement before it was a Hollywood hashtag. Growing up as the victim of sex abuse, she always assumed she had done something wrong. She was the one who broke the rules and somehow deserved what happened to her. It wasn't until she unburdened herself from that secret that she discovered how many other women would hear that story and say "me, too."

Burke's book begins the day she realizes the mission she'd worked on for years was being co-opted as a hashtag. While initially annoyed and even horrified, she eventually figured out how to embrace it and see her messaging amplified.

Unbound tells the story of Burke's life from childhood to activist. While I didn't grow up in nearly the same circumstances, I found Burke's story powerfully relatable. Her story deserves to be told and celebrated for the change she made in our world.