By Lauren Bell
Some of My Best Friends by Tajja Isen is collection of nine essays on her views and experiences about the prevalence and uselessness of lip service in current society. Her work is a critique of the language we use and how we use it, raising such points as the watering down of words like anti-racism and diversity. Her background in law allows her to examine the ways language is used in legal reasoning and policies, which show exactly how insidiously language can be used against us.
Some of My Best Friends is best summarized by Isen herself:
Certain establishments have always said what they think the public wants to hear, whether for profit or cachet. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this dynamic is predominantly how I—and, I’d venture, most people—have long interacted with the institutions that shape my life: they let us down and promise and we adapt, then they apologize for letting us down and promise to fix things; then they break their promises shortly afterward or never act on them at all. This book is about how we live, and what we demand, amid such token apologies and promises.
Isen emphasizes that actions speak louder than words and calls out the many Band-Aid fix apologies that have been inherent in society for far too long. She’s exceptionally well-versed in pop culture and the many examples of injustices (mostly from 2016 to present) that she presents demonstrate her cultural awareness and show how much more work Canada and the United States need to be doing in terms of creating equity. Most writers could follow her example in dedication to representation; she predominantly bases her work on her own experiences and the experiences of other BIPOC individuals.
A few of my favourite essays from Some of My Friends are “Hearing Voices” in which she introduces the complicated world of voice acting. In “Tiny White People,” I completely agree with her views on the bland options of high school novel studies. In “This Time It’s Personal,” Isen discusses the nuances of identity, and the pressure that creatives face to focus their work on their pain.
Aside from her intellect, the other defining quality to Isen’s writing is her wit, which complements her “No BS” attitude. At one point, she reflects on a piece of work she wrote in 2016, asking “Who is she? What’s her problem, where the hell is her sense of humor?” Tajja, I promise you, you’ve found it.
Writing this review is where I realized how impactful her work was. Words, as Isen has shown, are powerful, and I wanted to pick the right ones in this review to adequately encapsulate the depth of this book. Language is powerful, and how we use it is powerful. In that sense, Some of My Best Friends is powerful too, and if that doesn’t justify adding it to your reading list, I don’t know what will.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.