Backlash by Susan Faludi
Published 1991 · 180,000 words · about 12 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Feminist Literature, Journalism & Reportage, Nonfiction
How hard is Backlash to read?
Backlash scores 40 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Journalistic vocabulary. Clear and accessible.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Well-crafted investigative prose. Clear and propulsive.
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- Concrete investigative journalism. Theory embedded in evidence.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Packed with data, reporting, and cultural analysis across many domains.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Thematic chapters, each investigating a different domain of backlash.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Backlash as organizing concept. Otherwise journalistic and evidence-driven.
- Ironic distance: 18 out of 100
- Faludi lets the absurdity of the myths speak for itself.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Faludi exposes the backlash but acknowledges it is an ongoing phenomenon.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Four parts covering media, politics, fashion, and Hollywood. Extensive reporting.
How Backlash is regarded
Backlash holds a literary regard score of 54 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.