The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

How it reads

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love is narrative nonfiction (feminist social criticism, specifically), and its dominant mood is hopeful. Whatever it puts its people through, it believes things can get better. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in several locations, in the recent past, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity, love and class and society. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 208 pages it's a quick read. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.