Sorry Not Sorry

May 1, 2021

Actress/activist Milano here offers a series of essays that revisit her life and career, ranging from family to friendship to celebrity. Actively involved in the #MeToo movement, she has a lot to say about politics, too.

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August 9, 2021
Actor Milano (Safe at Home) puts her political activism center stage in these resonant and hopeful essays that grapple with systemic racism, abortion rights, #MeToo, and living through the pandemic. Milano wryly notes that readers expecting backstage gossip won’t find it. Instead, the 32 essays, she writes, offer a “snapshot of a year in the life of an activist as everything we knew about the political world and the physical world seemed to devolve around us.” In “Progressive or Performer” she decries “performative activism” that opts for being “right” rather than being “effective,” and “The Imperfect Ally” sees her reflecting on accepting mistakes: “You have to be okay with getting it wrong, hearing that you got it wrong, and committing to do it better.” “Defund the Police” dispels beliefs that the concept means “eliminate law enforcement” (she also explains to “trolls” why she herself called 911), while in “A Conversation” she imagines listening sympathetically to a woman protesting against abortion rights outside a Planned Parenthood location. Milano’s writing is compassionate, direct, and sincere. Her fans are in for a treat. Agent: Mollie Glick, Creative Artists Agency.

September 1, 2021
Essays on current political topics by a high-profile actor and activist. Milano explains in an introduction that she began writing this uneven collection while dealing with a severe case of Covid-19 and suffering from "persistent brain fog." In the first essay, "On Being Unapologetically Fucked Up," the author begins by fuming over a February 2019 incident in which she compared MAGA caps worn by high school kids to KKK hoods. She then runs through a grab bag of flash-point news items (police shootings, border crimes, sexual predators in government), deploying the F-bomb with abandon and concluding, "What I know is that fucked up is as fundamental a state of the world as night and day. But I know there is better. I know that 'less fucked up' is a state we can live in." The second essay, "Believe Women," discusses Milano's seminal role in the MeToo movement; unfortunately, it is similarly conversational in tone and predictable in content. One of the few truly personal essays, "David," about the author's marriage, refutes the old saw about love meaning never having to say you're sorry, replacing it with "Love means you can suggest a national sex strike and your husband doesn't run away screaming." Milano assumes, perhaps rightly, that her audience is composed of followers and fans; perhaps these readers will know what she is talking about in the seemingly allegorical "By Any Other Name," about her bad experience with a certain rosebush. "Holy shit, giving birth sucked," begins one essay. "Words are weird, right?" begins the next. "Welp, this is going to piss some of you off. Hang in there," opens a screed about cancel culture--though she's entirely correct that "it's childish, divisive, conceited, and Trumpian to its core." By the end, however, Milano's intelligence, compassion, integrity, and endurance somewhat compensate for her lack of literary polish. The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.

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October 15, 2021
Celebrated for her roles in the television series Who's the Boss?, Melrose Place, and Charmed, Milano is perhaps better known today as an activist in the #MeToo movement and other political causes. She describes this essay collection as "a snapshot of a year in the life of an activist as everything we knew about the political world and the physical world seemed to devolve around us." In fact, she tells us, she started writing it at the end of 2019 and continued throughout the following year as she suffered a bout of COVID-19, participated in a presidential campaign, and took on other projects. Milano addresses a variety of subjects in these essays, among them misogyny, white privilege, the pandemic, patriotism, policing, cancel culture, patriarchy, the Electoral College, and voting rights. She is earnest and edgy (she has a penchant for f-bombs) as she shares sharp observations, impassioned pleas, and tough assessments on the current state of American society. Readers interested in discussing contemporary issues will find much to agree (or disagree) with in this engaging and provocative volume.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.