Number one book finished on vacation. I didn’t pick light and fluffy books. I did, however, read everyone’s reviews of Eclipse, and am very happy that it’s now waiting for me at the library. Unfortunately (maybe), I have two Austen-sequels to get through before Saturday, so Bella and Jacob and Edward will have to wait (as well Pretties…). I do promise to put pictures of Amira and booklogged up, if it’s okay with them. 🙂

On to the review…

After reading Girls Gone Mild, and since M is due to start Middle School any day now, I figured it was about time I got around to reading Mary Pipher’s book. My mom sent me this one a year or so ago; she had read it a while back when my sister was going through some tough times at home. Mom figured it could help me — you know, the whole four girls thing and all.

I found this book — it’s the 1994 version — to be both incredibly helpful and completely out of date. Well, mostly out of date. I think we’ve come a long ways in the 13 years since this book was written. I’m not sure the teenagers of today are nearly the demure, confused girls that Pipher was interviewing. There is greater equality in education (in fact, I read a report that quoted statistics that said more girls than boys are likely to graduate high school and go to college.) At the same time, I completely buy what Shalit was writing about: we are still an incredibly sexist, lookist and misogynistic society and that the incidences of eating disorders and other self-abusive practices are actually up, rather than down.

It was really a lot of personal stories, many of them disturbing and sad. But, there were a couple of places where Pipher gives some much-needed advice. (Unfortunately, they were at the end of the book.) She has a chapter on “What I Learned from Listening”, which is essentially a primer on how to listen to your teenager, and how to guide her through the process of discovering her own opinions, thoughts, and belief systems. Invaluable. And the final chapter, “A Fence At the Top of the Hill”, she gave suggestions on how to keep your girl from being swept away by the storm that is teenage years. I found it to be encouraging and helpful.