V is an incredible talent. I'm glad that they have brought us along for so much of their life. A painful and difficult read — check those content warnings.

It's extraordinary the way that V (formerly Eve Ensler) has made her life's work about turning toward what so much of society would rather look away from. And this chronicle of her journey is important and powerful. That said, it's also a tough read because she's tackling head on what we most need to heal collectively!

Not surprisingly, if you are familiar with V (formerly Eve Ensler's) work then you know this will be no holds barred gut and heart-wrenching meditation on trauma, abuse of women and disasters in the world. There are essays she has published over the past decades including a moving section on AIDS as well as current poetry and commentary on the impacts of Trump and Covid. A difficult read but also a very moving and important read. Using her voice to speak out about these injustices is incredibly empowering and hopeful in the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA, for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

If you’ve heard of The Vagina Monologues, then you are already familiar with the work of this author, V, who was formerly known as Eve Ensler. She is a phenomenal playwright, activist and writer. This book is a collection of essays, poems and reflections on global systems of power and the experiences of women and people who embody identities outside of gender binaries. V’s writing is raw and unflinching in its examination of violence, extraction and manipulation, but it also shines a light on so much hope, resilience and love. The core argument here is that a reckoning for our societal and individual ills is overdue. Read this book if you’re ready to dismantle patriarchy and examine your role in upholding it.

I have read some other books by V and she does not hold back. Some really tough and heinous subjects regarding violence and abuse of women are covered and this volume is no different. Although slim, it takes a while to read through the topics including speeches, articles and poetry. Her stories of rape as war are especially moving. Her own story of abuse and her attempts to address this with her mother are also heart rendering and helpful for other victims. A good but difficult read.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

5/5 must read nonfiction of 2023!

If you're like me, and Vagina Monologues changed how you viewed your body, your value and your culture, then you are going to want to read Reckoning by V (formerly Eve Ensler).

Get your highlighters and annotating items ready because you're going to want to share quotes and insights with everyone you know. V holds up a mirror to in which we see the deep criticisms and ceaseless hope of western culture today.

As V describes, this book is shaped like grief, and gathers as it flows. Essays dig deep into our cultural understanding of race, abuse, justice and feminism. When V writes about the components and power of apology, I forget to breathe. While V references specific instances, the feelings are universal and relevant to all readers.

Read this book, while sitting beside your best friend, because you will want to discuss and quote from it often.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for an advanced reader copy of this book.

Big, big feels about this memoir -- it is beautiful in a way that shatters you. I have never highlighted so many passages that resonated with me in a book before. V (formerly Eve Ensler) lives up to her many awards and recognitions with "Reckoning," an unflinching look at sexual violence, identity, family, activism, and more. I felt absolutely privileged to be able to read an advanced copy of this work (thank you, Bloomsbury and NetGalley!) and will without a doubt reread this after I've fully sat with and processed this work.

A huge content warning to anyone who has experience with sexual violence/assault -- there is a lot of graphic content in this book and I had to put it down several times just to take a breath and re-ground myself. Please take care of yourselves!

What a gift it feels like to read anything by the brilliant and brave V (formerly Eve Ensler). This compilation of former works of all types along with current writing about the Supreme Court and Trump and Covid should each be savored by the reader, allowing yourself to sit with the feelings that inevitably rise up upon reading V’s words. Thank you to Bloomsbury for the advanced copy. What a gift.

When I was a freshmen in college, I was involved in producing The Vagina Monologues, an experience I did for four years, and V-Day now means that celebration of women's bodies, so Eve Ensler played a huge part of my younger years.

I have read some of her follow-up work; I especially appreciated Necessary Targets.

I love that V has this good energy and wants to keep moving with her work, but I wonder what place this book has in her canon. Many of her other books were solid concepts, whereas this one is a collective of speeches and diary entries and other bits, which are compelling for one who is studying Ensler's body of work. In some ways, I am grateful to this writer, but I also think about how we take up space--there was a part of me that wondered what it would look like if Ensler would have instead taken some of this energy and backed a new voice in feminist writing?

Ordinarily, I'd celebrate a new piece from one of our foremothers, but this somehow occurred to me, how we make space for one another, how we respect the generations that come before us by also respecting the ones that come next.

A good piece for true Ensler fans, but not a first book to read by her.

In her latest work, V considers America’s reckoning: with a legacy steeped in systemic racism, violence, overconsumption, patriarchal values and most recently, a pandemic, as the focus of her latest book, the product of 45 years of her writings.

In Reckoning, she explores a personal reckoning that grew over the decades. Through diary entries, poetry and monologues, she writes about the family violence and sexual abuse she endured from her father, world events she witnessed and losing friends to the AIDS crisis.

V’s writing style is engaging and beautiful, even her unflinching descriptions of horrific events. It’s hard to stomach and keep reading, but her ability to capture the pain is a testament to her gift as a writer. It’s clear that she views being a witness to these events as a responsibility that she cannot shrug off. Her recounting of horrific events, like the femicide in Congo, took my breath away and made me physically ill. Yet I could not look away.

She peels back the curtain and gives the reader an intimate view of her life and motivations. Her latest work is not only a reckoning, but a reclamation.

The Reckoning is a compassionate collection of speeches, essays, and poems showcasing V's role as a women's rights activist. The collection also shines light on the pandemic, supreme court appointments, and access to abortion. Complete review submitted to Library Journal for publication.

If I were asked to come up with a single word to describe V, formerly known as Eve Ensler, I would struggle to do so.

"V is a Tony and Obie award-winning, New York Times best-selling playwright, author, and activist with plays and books published in over 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. The founder of V-Day, the global grassroots movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, those who hold fluid identities, and nonbinary people), and the planet, she is also the founder of One Billion Rising, the biggest mass action campaign to end violence against all women and girls in over 200 countries, and the co-founder of City of Joy, a revolutionary leadership center for Congolese women survivors of violence in Bukavu, DRC," as described by her own press materials and on her own website.

These are, indeed, tangible expressions of the life of V and they are remarkable, world-changing achievements.

Yet, as remarkable as these things are they still seem to fall short of describing V.

Unflinching? No question. Brave? Absolutely. Intimate? Fiercely true.

There's more.

As I was reading "Reckoning" and feeling beyond privileged to be one of the earliest ones to do so, the word that kept coming back to me time and time again is "love."

I'm not talking about the Hallmark version of love or some greeting card expression. I'm not talking about the romanticized and sentimental version of love we're often sold in the media.

Nope. The love that comes alive in the remarkable "Reckoning" is both internal and external. It's the kind of love you fight for relentlessly and you spend an entire lifetime figuring out what it all means.

There's no logical reason that V has become this love. There's no logical reason that she has survived years of childhood abuse and self-hatred and become this relentless force for change who has seemingly demanded a better world then invested every fiber of her being into creating it.

It's not logical. And yet it is.

After her masterful book, now play, "The Apology," V permanently banished the name Eve Ensler into the archives of her life experiences. Abandoning that paternal identity assigned to her by a father whose violent abuse could have easily become her identity, V instead reclaimed herself and it's that reckoning of sorts that comes powerfully to live in "Reckoning."

For years, I wondered if I belonged in the V universe. As a longtime writer, playwright, activist, and more, V has long emphasized ending violence against women and girls (cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, and those who hold fluid identities). I exist in this world and have long identified with it, partly out of my own trauma history as a survivor of childhood sexual violence and disability and partly out of my own activism which is much smaller scale yet no less vital.

V's words and actions and creativity have long fueled me and inspired me and informed me and challenged me. The same is true with "Reckoning," a magnificent collection of prose, poetry, dreams, letters, and essays drawn from V's lifetime journals that takes readers from Berlin to Oklahoma to Congo, from climate disaster, homelessness, and activism to family.

I loved every page of "Reckoning," not because it was necessarily joyful but because it was filled life and love, passion and commitment. There's dark humor to be found here and almost jarring intimacy. As is always true of V's writings, this is a book I will refer to time and time again.

V beautifully balances the writing in "Reckoning," always acknowledging the influences of her past yet clinging to the light that occasionally dims but she refuses to let be extinguished.

I'm still not truly sure that a single world can possibly describe the wonder that is V, but I am absolutely certain that within her very roots the seeds of love have come to define this woman who authentically lives into a life of breaking her own abusive cycles and empowering and educating others toward doing the same.

All I can say is "Reckoning" is a remarkable achievement.