Rating: 
Summary: A Strong, Feminine Voice
Review: While The Princessa isn't flawless, the author presents some wonderful options for women on how to become stronger negotiators and how to play by their own rules.The Princessa lightly reflects the ideals of Machiavelli (and often negates them) while lightly presenting historic persons to animate her points. This sometimes comes across as being too superficial and fluffy. More substantial evidence, arguments, and examples would have been a wonderful addition to make this book a more solid guide. Overall, The Princessa is a good read. I found it entertaining, enlightening, and even empowering. I came away with some new tools and strategies to use in my career and everyday life. Additionally, this book challenged some of my own closely held beliefs on negotiation and women in the workplace, so I appreciate it for what it's worth. As an aside: To the reader who threw the book to Dorothy Parker - she's been dead since 1967.
Rating: 
Summary: Getting It Done As Only a Woman Can
Review: Power is one of those areas where writers have looked at the question from a male perspective or a unisex one that seems to be primarily male. To conceive of a book about women grasping and using power was a novel idea that quickly attracted my attention when the book first came out. I have had the pleasure of sharing this book with many women in business and later discussing the book with them. Clearly, the part of the book where Rubin argues that women should act like women in gaining and using power is very controversial with some women. The most extreme example of this point in dividing women readers I know is the advice to cry in front of men. Many women feel like this will cost them power, rather than gain them power. Others want to play the game like a man, and don't want to remind men that they are women. Other women feel that they should cry if they feel like it. Why shouldn't they? So, one of the interesting aspects of this book is that it helps the reader (female or male) to understand more about her or his assumptions about power. My experience is that coming to grips with assumptions is the essential first step to making progress, in this case towards more effective uses of power. A fascinating aspect of the book is that there are so few female historial characters for Rubin to draw on. Though each one is full of useful insights. I only wish there could have been more. An argument that Rubin makes is that many men would like women to take charge more. That makes sense to me. Why should women always hang back to see what the men want to do? Certainly, in our company the women who have done best are those who have taken charge. Unfortunately, opening the door and inviting people to step through it to set their own course is not enough for some. I encourage any woman (or man) who works with people of the opposite sex to read this book and think about its implications. Then use it as a discussion base for helping power be used more appropriately in your organization. Have a powerfully good time reading this book!
Rating:
Summary: You either love it or you hate it....
Review: I loved it. Harriet Rubin is a visionary for those of us that still believe (or wish to believe) that the path of the heart (combined with the good sense of a skillful mind) has the potential to be the most winning combination in business, as in life. Not for the faint-hearted or those who cannot think outside the box.
Rating:
Summary: The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women
Review: I have read this book more than five times and I still want to read it again. It is both simplistic and complicated. The very style from which she writes reflects the combining of opposites and the power and imminent strength behind doing just that. If you believe that strong women should NOT use feminine sexuality to their advantage then you have bought into all of the propaganda that has been used to CONTROL women for the last few thousand years. If you believe that true femininity is an innate strength and a power stronger than any other, then you will just love the way this author lays it all out on the line for practical application amidst life's little roadblocks. She dots the i's and crosses the t's. Harriet Rubin is brilliant!
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent reading for all women
Review: Harriet Rubins' presentation of Machiavelli For Women is brilliant, intelligent, well written, and powerful. Any woman who dares to empower herself should read this. The notion of the Princessa is nicely presented over the contexual framework of the Prince but not watered down. This literary jewel stands on its own merits. The format of the book utilizes the notion of strategy, tactics and weapons as central themes ( chapters ) while subsuming critical ideas and actions within those themes; certainly not a soft focus. The notes,and selected bibliography included suggests a scholarly focus, and lends credibility, and validity to the publication. I read the book in one evening the first time and now I spend evenings re-reading and digesting each point. I highly recommend The Princessa!
Rating:
Summary: Good Business Tips
Review: I enjoyed this book. Although the author takes too long to get to most of her points, it is a very insightful book and has ideas about power tips to use in the jobplace such as how to act in meetings, where to sit to attract attention, and dealing with staff. I would recommend it to a reader interested in advancing her place in business with the warning that a lot of "skim reading" is needed.
Rating:
Summary: This is not a how-to book
Review: I, too, am amazed at the differences in the reviews. I go with the "read-4-times-a-year" group. This is not a how-to book with step-by-step instructions on how to get and keep power. Perhaps that is why people are so violently opposed to it: they think Rubin is telling women to cry to get their way. I read it more like: it is okay to cry, if you have tried everything else and that has failed. I find it quite meditative and like to read a chapter here and there at night. I usually sets me off analyzing situations I have recently encountered. And I must say, many of her insights are quite helpful. I recommend this book to every woman I encounter who had just taken a step up the power ladder!
Rating:
Summary: Rx - Reread 4 Times Annually
Review: An affirming little tome, Rubin continues to bolster those of us who just want to do good business - and are surprised when our best intentions don't speak for themselves. With wit, character studies and a bit of mystery, she continues in this writ to draw our best selves out of us - the ones that want to win at the boys' game but have a little girl's sense of play about the rules. I find myself bringing this book out when I have been broadsided and need to regain my bearings in this mannish world of business-as-baseball ethics and practices. And I bring it out to add to the underlines already there, because with each re-read there are more messages, more thought-provoking phrases and more challenges to the greater good that I have missed in readings past. It's a mysterious book; don't think you'll get all the illustrations and diatribes with the first read. But know that it was written just for you, wherever you find yourself having to 'best' instead of 'win' for the sake of good business.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't compare to the real thing
Review: Do not bother with this disjointed, disappointing attempt to tell women how to get ahead. Rubin's treatise is poorly constructed and difficult to follow. She fails to appreciate the most important lesson in Machiavelli's The Prince: that you must be willing to do whatever is necessary to get ahead. She instead insists that women are incapable of that kind of ruthlessness, and advises that we take everything on the chin and hope we can turn a string of failures into success. No thanks. I'll just stick with the original.
Rating:
Summary: It Stinks
Review: If you can write a book by contradicting yourself and misquoting other peoples material then I quess Harriet Rubin did a bang up job. This book was absolutely a waste of my time. Rubin contradicts herself constantly which I quess is very Machiavellian but is the point of this book to educate or deceive the reader? In the chapter "The Paradox of Power Anorexia" ironically Rubin describes Jackie Onassis as a paragon of the powerful type of woman we were supposed to become, was she unaware of the fact that Jackie Onassis was a real life anorexic? Or is that something we are supposed to emulate too? In the "Book of Tactics" she simultaniously advocates telling the truth and lying to people. In tactic # 5 she says "Adopting his positon shocks the enemy, what you gain from doing so is much more effective than anything you acomplish by holding firm to your own position." She goes on to describe an Eastern Europeon rock band who won success by advocating the despots it despised. However in tactic #11 she state we should "Say the truth and act the truth. If you tell an opponent what he wants to hear, not what you mean you become a manipulator." Hello, wasn't that the whole point a minute ago! She advocates business practices for women such as bursting into tears at important meetings in order to get your way, and wearing dramatic costumes like a big floppy hats and dark glasses. You might get your way by bursting into tears at work, but I doubt you will get anyone's respect. I don't know what the field of publishing is like but these sort of tactics won't go over well at my workplace. In fact I really wonder if Rubin could have got this book published if she didn't work for a publishing company. I wonder if she burst into tears or if it was the floppy hat that did it.
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