'An epic disaster': Reporter lays out brutal review of Josh Hawley’s new book
19 May 2023
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO.) recently received a brutal review of his newly-released book titled, “Manhood.”
Although the book currently has a 1.19 Goodreads rating based on a total of 57 views, Slate Magazine's Rebecca Onion goes a step further with a more critical assessment of the Republican lawmaker's publication.
In a new op-ed published by the magazine, Onion did not hold back with her criticism of the book.
"Manhood builds on Hawley’s previous tries to become a figure of national relevance: a 2021 keynote on boyhood that the senator gave to the National Conservatism Conference; his boring Christian lifestyle podcast This is Living, which he co-hosted with his wife, Erin; and his last book, an argument against Big Tech."
"Like almost everything Hawley does, the book is an epic disaster,” she later added. “Why did a man who is probably our leading national pipsqueak decide that promoting manliness was his ticket to political power?”
She went on to challenge the lawmaker's perspective of manhood writing, “This culture-warrior perspective on manhood is so bizarre to read, knowing Hawley’s political indebtedness to the consumerist, gimme-gimme, consequences-be-damned MAGA vibe that currently dominates the Republican Party."
Onion also criticized Hawley's take on "manhood" as it relates to the right wing.
READ MORE: 'A fraud and a coward': Josh Hawley demolished by Missouri Democrat in brutal Senate campaign ad
"You will not be surprised to hear that Josh Hawley wants to claim true 'manhood' — a state embodied, for him, by the Biblical archetypes of husband, father, warrior, builder, priest, and king, each of which get a chapter in the second part of this book — as the province only of the right-wing," she wrote.
Onion's scathing review comes as other critics have also echoed similar disapproval of Hawley's piece. The Guardian's Lloyd Green, The Washington Post's Becca Rothfeld, and The Intercept's Jon Schwarz have all slammed the book with critical takeaways from it. Describing the book as a "stretched out" version of an op-ed, Schwarz insists "Manhood" is somehow both short and long.
“Short because it’s an op-ed stretched out to barely 200 pages, and long because it is preternaturally boring,” Schwarz wrote. “There are zero jokes, not even a single wry remark. Consuming it is like eating a small but dense log of suet.”
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