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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: I found this book moving and original in its approach. Both women and men should read it, as well as high school kids. Essential reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Important book
Review: I read both the book, and the other reviews. One reviewer mentioned he'd lived across the hall from some 'sluts' he knew, who were "nice people". His attitude is actually half of the problem, but that's by the by. Onto the book.Emily White has given us an exercise in pinpointing the dangerous clique society that engulfs our schools and encourages seperatism and prejudice. The mentality behind labelling girls as "sluts" is fairly well discussed, and the author did actually hit a raw nerve with me, as I was one of those girls was *was* labelled. With that in mind, this review is admittedly biased. I did appreciate the conversations with other "sluts", and I would love to see this book as required reading in schools everywhere. Perhaps the most startling thing about this book though, was the author's actual attitude towards these "sluts". On one hand it was sympathetic, and justifiably defensive of the whole stigma, but on the other hand, all too often it appeared that White was actually part of the problem, in her use of labels. Maybe I misinterpreted it. Regardless, it's an important book that's very accessible to a wide audience, and would be a great addition to any teacher's bookshelf. We can all learn something here.
Rating:
Summary: Important book
Review: I read both the book, and the other reviews. One reviewer mentioned he'd lived across the hall from some 'sluts' he knew, who were "nice people". His attitude is actually half of the problem, but that's by the by. Onto the book. Emily White has given us an exercise in pinpointing the dangerous clique society that engulfs our schools and encourages seperatism and prejudice. The mentality behind labelling girls as "sluts" is fairly well discussed, and the author did actually hit a raw nerve with me, as I was one of those girls was *was* labelled. With that in mind, this review is admittedly biased. I did appreciate the conversations with other "sluts", and I would love to see this book as required reading in schools everywhere. Perhaps the most startling thing about this book though, was the author's actual attitude towards these "sluts". On one hand it was sympathetic, and justifiably defensive of the whole stigma, but on the other hand, all too often it appeared that White was actually part of the problem, in her use of labels. Maybe I misinterpreted it. Regardless, it's an important book that's very accessible to a wide audience, and would be a great addition to any teacher's bookshelf. We can all learn something here.
Rating: 
Summary: FAST GIRLS: TEENAGE TRIVES AND THE MYTH OF THE SLUT
Review: I was disappointed in this book because the author struggles to present a coherent point of view. She veers from personal story to personal story without leading the reader to any original insight about why girls treat one another this way and what societal pressures encourage such harsh judgements in adolescent girls. Also, there is very little material about the way in which the desire to condemn and isolate may have changed in recent years due to a society in which sexuality is increasingly open and diverse.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Much of this book is divided between repetitive anecdotes and personal musings that pass for analysis. There is something of value here but it could be condensed into a good magazine article without loss of worth. The author is also preoccupied with meeting women that had been stigmatised as 'sluts' in their adolescence. Some of the resulting intrusions lack any serious analytical content to raise them above the level of excursions into journalistic voyeurism. The book fails to factor likely childhood sexual abuse (CSA)into the 'explanations' of teenage female promiscuity. In my opinion, this is such a serious shortcoming as to call the whole exercise into question. There is simply buckets of evidence to suggest that a high percentage of 'over sexualised' female adolescents correlate strongly with childhood sexual abuse. If the author had explored the relationship between CSA and 'sluts', she would have produced a much more insightful text.
Rating: 
Summary: Interview and Ponder
Review: Recently I feel as if there have been a lot of "interview and ponder" books out there where an author gets an idea, interviews a bunch of people, and writes about the interviewees' and the author's thoughts on the matter. White does this while discussing "high school sluts" but goes one step further by using history, entertainment media, mythology, and social psychology to discuss the myth or archetype of the slut story. Through her interviews White found that almost every high school had/has a recognized slut, and that that girl is ostracized by both male and female students. She also learned, through interviews with "identified sluts" that there are certain things most of these girls have in common: "early puberty, early childhood sexual abuse, a tendency toward extroversion, (and) a rumor that will not die about doing the entire football team" (171). White also found that most of the "identified sluts" were White girls from suburban areas. Although the book is well written, I feel as if it's too short and incomplete. When writing a book like this I feel like an author should bring us through a while cycle of genesis of the problem, discussion of the current problem as it is, and finally how we can change it. I feel as if White's book is lacking slightly in the last area, but at the same time I'm well aware of the question, "But how do you change an archetype that's pervaded our whole culture?"
Rating: 
Summary: boring
Review: The guy who lived across from sluts in College is right. I had the same experience in college, and all the author does is pretend REAL sluts don't exist!
There was a girl in the house across from me who would bang a bunch of guys when she was drunk, then try to harass us to garner sympathy the next day. I'm not saying she was a bad person, but she got what she asked for. She could have used counselling, or real friends-- but she was a slut.
The Author glosses over reality and that isn't cool. Yeah, there are a lot of unfair rumours. People have claimed that I was a fag; etc, etc, etc.
Over all, she wrote a book to placate women who feel powerless or inferior.
Rating:
Summary: Critical and Compassionate
Review: This book is beautifully written, lyrical in style and fiercely analytical in content. It tells the stories, sad and profound, of individual girls and women while pulling from those stories the threads of ancient myths and fears that keep us all enmeshed in the myth of the slut. Reading Fast Girls has the complex effect of making us squirm with discomfort while empowering us with the knowledge that the myth of the slut is greater than ourselves. Like Foucault's Discipline and Punish (but a much better read)the author shows how we are all victims of language and culture. Yet, this book doesn't force us to see past the wall of letters SLUT, it shows us the cracks, compellingly and deliberately, until what's revealed is what we already know in our hearts to be true. In a lesser writer's hands this might make us all breath a sigh of relief that it's okay then, not our fault. Yet Fast Girls manages to communicate the possiblity of a better way. The writer is a kind of poet-journalist, provocative without being strident, sensitive without pulling punches. Everyone should read this book (despite its weighty subject matter, it's a page turner!) AND it should be required reading for all preteen boys and girls. It could just change the world.
Rating:
Summary: Moving and Spooky
Review: This book really scared me. I guess it's about bullying per se, but it is also about violence against girls AS WOMEN, just for their sexuality, for the threat of it. In one story a girl is taken outside and tied to a tree and spat on! Girls really opened up to White as an interviewer, and her writing between the interviews is the hightlight.
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