Reviews and Comments

Le poche cose che ricordo di questo libro:

-la portinaia protagonista che si trova in difficoltà quando deve dire all'adorabile signore giapponese che deve andare in bagno, e alla fine opta per un "posso usare i servizi?"
-la ragazza che si chiama Olimpia (???) e veniva presa in giro con varie battute sullo scalare il suo monte
-la bimba che si fa pippe mentali forse filosofiche sicuramente incomprensibili

Due stelle perché ricordo che almeno la protagonista principale mi stava simpatica.

Pipher, what’s your point?

I would love to say exactly what i disliked about this book, but i don’t even know what the author’s point was. Is it supposed to be a study, an analysis on adolescent girls? Then why is it full of anecdotes? Is it blaming society for what many girls have to go through? Then why does it feel, at times, like Pipher is being so condescending towards her patients? Are girls supposed to be raised more androgynous? Then why is the ultraconservative, clearly sexist father praised? And there’s this weird tension between progressive concepts (feminism, lookism etc.) and a conservative attitude towards drugs and alcohol and gasp sex, that reads more like a nostalgia for “how things were in my days!” than a reasoned position.

Does any of this even make sense?

I don’t know. I only know that i stopped thoroughly reading this book at the beginning of the chapter about divorce (“in many families, children may not notice if their parents are unhappy.”? are you f**king kidding me?!). I’ll read the ones about depression and thinness, and then skip right to the end. Hopefully the last chapters will be more insightful, and this book will prove to be less of a waste of my time.