Jezebel founder Anna Holmes is saying no to everything except maybe a Susan Orlean invite

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Set us as preferred On the Shelf The Power of No: A Celebration By Anna Holmes Knopf: 160 pages, $24If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.On a blazing hot Silver Lake morning, ushering in yet another heatwave day, Anna Holmes and I say “no” to a steamy sidewalk table at Millie’s Cafe, opting instead for an indoor, air-conditioned spot.Our server reads our order back to us, shaking his head in theatrical disbelief.

“Pancakes.French toast.

Biscuit.Waffle with whipped cream.” He glances from one of us to the other.

“No protein?” he asks.“Just the carbs?” “I guess I’ll have some egg whites, too,” I cave.

Not so my brunch companion who confirms, “Just the carbs.” Holmes grins, “I’m not a fan of fad diets that make women hate ourselves.”In fact, Holmes has built a career of saying “no” to woman-hating of all kinds — starting in 2007, when she founded the boundary-pushing feminist website Jezebel, the sister site of the notoriously provocative Gawker.“I decided that NO would be our mantra of sorts,” she writes in her new book, “The Power of No: A Celebration.” “‘No’ to diet tips, ‘no’ to sexist gossip, ‘no’ to conspicuous consumption.

We drove the point home again and again … creating new definitions and examples of what it means to be female.”Raised in a biracial, working-class family in Davis, Calif., Holmes escaped to New York at 18, chasing her writer’s dream.“Davis was a safe, homogenous little town,” she tells me, spearing one of the sliced strawberries fanned prettily across her waffle.

“Being Black, I wasn’t one of the homogenies.I couldn’t wait to get out.”Accepted by several top universities, Holmes said ‘yes’ to New York University.

“They ga...