“To be a woman is to relate to Elissa Bassist’s fierce and funny new memoir, Hysterical, a searing indictment of the patriarchal and misogynistic medical system that so often belittles, ignores, and seeks to silence women’s voices…Thus, this impassioned memoir, which critiques “a culture where men speak and women shut up,” was born, and Bassist became definitively uncaged. Hysterical is for the women who are tired of being ignored, shamed, overmedicated, and misunderstood.” — Shondaland
“In her dazzling memoir, Elissa Bassist cuts right to the heart and delivers an intimate, unexpected, funny, and original yet universal story about voice and silence and illness. Hysterical is an impressive debut. Elissa Bassist wrote it like a motherfucker.” — Cheryl Strayed
“I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Elissa’s writing. That was five loves…Quite a special, strong, funny voice.” — Joey Soloway, creator/writer/director/Emmy-award of Transparent
“A sharp examination of life in “a culture where men speak and women shut up”…[Bassist’s] memoir stands as proof of an arduous process of healing. A fiery cultural critique.” — Kirkus Review
“Bassist’s resounding voice will echo in readers’ heads long after they have finished the book. This book a reckoning with an unjust power system that hurts everyone.” — Booklist
“This is staggeringly good. I am speechless, which as a reader, is a rare thing for me. I really just have a bunch of blubbering accolades…This is one of the most intelligent, painful, ridiculous, awesome, relevant things I’ve ever read. I am impressed.” — Roxanne Gay
“Funny and furious and sharp and bursting with everything we’re urged to hold inside, Elissa Bassist’s Hysterical is a god damn delight.” — Rebecca Traister
“One of the qualities I appreciated most…is the way that author subtly and gracefully links her deeply personal life story to compelling questions about women’s sexuality, literature, history. We never notice her doing the connecting; the larger themes and analysis are seamlessly woven into the intimate story. She makes us think and care about not simply what happened to her, but about women’s bodies, our continued detachment from our own desire, our own complicity in the culture of sexual violence…This artful, moving work of creative nonfiction transcends the self, while keeping us rooted in the most intimate of stories.” — Danzy Senna, bestselling author of Caucasia
“This is the kind of writing that inspires me. By which I mean, [Hysterical] is a kindness and a mercy…Isn’t that what any book of consequence should be. Also, it leaves me in stitches.” — Ricardo Maldonado, Co-director of 92NY Poetry Center
” Bassist…has bravely used the story of her body as it has been overwritten by insufficient, inefficient medical discourses to offer answers for women who feel as if they inhabit ‘a body that didn’t make sense to science, a psyche that didn’t make sense to mankind in general.’ Like Tillie Olson, Susan Bordo, and so many feminist theorists before her, Bassist explores the silencing acts that keep women small. She also explores the ways in which finding a voice requires women to take up space in ways that transgress expectations by insisting on the female body’s inherent rightness—something society still does not believe. VERDICT: Disruptive, tender, and beautiful, this book is a reversal of women’s apologies and a demand for more.” — Library Journal, starred review
“[Bassist] started having issues with her physical voice, and through looking for why that was happening and the health issues around that, came to understand how much of it was tied to trauma and her own efforts to kind of keep herself quiet over the years. [Hysterical] touches on so many things women deal with in the world. It weaves the science in — in a great way where you’re both reading about what this woman has gone through, but you’re learning something at the same time.” — Daisy Rosario, What’s Making Us Happy: Recommendations from NPR’s Pop Culture Radio Hour
“Hysterical felt like a kind of a breakthrough, a celebratory whoop and a call to action all in one, even for someone who has identified as a feminist for decades. As I finished it, I found myself wanting to press it into the hands of everyone I know because whether it is a revelation or a reminder, Hysterical is part of the essential story of [living as a woman] today.” — The San Francisco Chronicle
“Bassist’s command of prose is as honed as the muscles of an Olympic gymnast. Her intelligence shines; her wit is so dry it is parched.” — Hippocampus Magazine
” It felt like she was talking to me, telling me this story about her, about me, about all women out there, and I had to listen.” — The Brooklyn Rail
“Bassist’s memoir is both a detailed diagnostic and a measured prescription for women, specifically American women and all those who have the capacity for pregnancy, at this particularly patriarchal juncture in a post-Roe time.” — Chicago Review of Books
” In this powerful, beautifully written, and utterly important book, Bassist’s voice rings clear and true…” — New York Journal of Books
“When Bassist shares her hard-earned voice, out pours wry wisdom, acceptance, and candid observations. For the low cover price of this memoir, you can revel in her magic and might come away as I did with a touch more compassion for yourself and those around you.” — Colorado Review
“Maybe Bassist is onto a new genre—less coming-of-age memoir, more coming-of-rage.” — The Coachella Review
“In Hysterical, Bassist screams that silence hurts more than anything ‘wrong’ we could ever say.” — The Cut
“Spanning the literary spectrum from intimate memoir to spirited manifesto, Elissa Bassist’s outstanding debut, Hysterical, finds the essayist, editor, and writing teacher directing her formidable intellectual energy, superb wit, and startlingly honest writing style toward a courageous, impassioned reckoning with American patriarchy and the cultural forces working in tandem to suppress women’s voices at the expense of their physical and mental health.” — Shelf Awareness
“For readers who engage with Bassist’s charismatic writing and embrace its revolutionary cultural scope, there will be no going back to patriarchy-as-usual.” — Shelf Awareness
“[Bassist] applied all of her comedy writing prowess to create this darkly funny memoir.” — Paste Magazine
“I was just blown away by [her] footnotes, which were so hilarious and so great and enlightening, like true footnotes. Whenever someone, myself included, thinks of footnotes, we think of David Foster Wallace or Junot Diaz, and all of those footnotes are just like…onanism. It felt like [Bassist was] taking back the footnote, to be what they should be: illuminating and fun but not masturbatory.” — Paste Magazine
“Having read her feminist memoir…it’s easy to imagine Elissa Bassist, a la Arya Stark, sharpening her pen and reciting the names of all the men who’ve wronged her.” — The Millions
“…Bassist is a brilliant humorist who knows how to balance weight with wit….With a voice so distinct, it’s no wonder her silence almost killed her.” — The Millions
“Like many great memoirs, Hysterical is less autobiography than argument — in this case the argument that modern society is making women sick.” — The Forward
“Hysterical—which might be called a manifesto or a call to action or revolution—invites readers to rethink sexist constructs and other social biases, and to consider how we all uphold them through our actions (and inactions). With her signature blend of humor, cutting prose, and research…Bassist urges us to speak up for ourselves even when it seems impossible.” — Creative Nonfiction
“Reading, I found myself at first nodding with recognition and then, more than once, shouting yes as Bassist launched into another enlightening polemic about how women are called emotional or insane or vindictive or hormonal “until ‘vocal’ is a symptom” of illness in women (but a virtue when applied to men). But Bassist doesn’t let us go long without a release valve. If on one page I need a box of tissues, by the next she caught me off guard with jokes about dance crews…For both aspiring and seasoned writers, Hysterical is as much a craft lesson as it is a wake-up call.” — Creative Nonfiction
“Before reading her book, I hadn’t found much literature (especially witty literature) on how misogyny shows up in the body. What a relief to find a book that articulates so many frustrating and familiar experiences; I couldn’t put my highlighter down.” — Catapult
“Bassist manages to be funny, precise, and intimate while dissecting the mess of modern feminism—wow, women can have it all!” — Electric Literature
“Hysterical is for every woman, especially those who have experienced trauma or chronic health issues. Reading it will make every woman want to go out and buy this book for every woman they love, then go write their own story.” — Lilith Magazine
