Rating: 
Summary: Women who love men who hate women
Review: Wurtzel treats other people like poo, and calls it empowerment. It's okay, though, because as she reminds the reader ad nauseum, she's extremely well-connected and attended Harvard. Anyway she's good-looking, and the most consistent message in this otherwise self-contradictory mess is that "Beauty = Virtue." Read between the lines and Wurtzel's idea of feminism is a hot chick who dresses like a prostitute, mistreats others, throws tantrums like a child and otherwise embodies the darkest misogynist fantasies of men. Even Wurtzel acknowledges that this attracts men at their worst, leading to loveless, mutually destructive relationships - but it makes you cool, tragic and popular!! Be warned that her advice isn't for everyone, however: Nicole Simpson rates higher on Wurtzel's "Flattering Projection of Myself" scale than Gertrude Stein or Eleanor Roosevelt, for instance, because she was inherently superior. I mean, duh! Nicole was *way* hotter than Stein!! I think we all agree that the ability to inspire a man to camouflage his lap topology with a strategically-placed briefcase is the sole measure of a woman's worth, right? File me under Feminism! Wurtzel borrowed her book's title from an essay by Ron Rosenbaum. The cover photo was her publisher's idea, and she just went along with it. She uses the word "youthquaker" an average of four times per chapter. But perhaps the best summary of this book comes from an excerpt from her interview on National Public Radio shortly after publication: Random Caller: Hello. I just want to say that I find it deeply offensive that your publisher and this radio network are presenting you as the voice of feminism, apparently on the merits of your appearance and connections. Your book is if anything anti-feminism, and the writing's so bad it reads as though it were written on speed. Wurtzel: It was written on speed. [uncomfortable silence]
Rating: 
Summary: Great book but........
Review: I really did like this book. Wurtzel is a very witty author and she uses savvy commentary to draw the reader in. The only real problem with the novel that I found was that she used a lot of Biblical references (ex: Delilah) and while they are good examples, they become very repetitive. One chapter is solely based on Delilah alone and it took me forever to get through... A good read, especially if you like Biblical references to modern day situations.
Rating:
Summary: trying hard to be outrageous
Review: The title and book cover (and my copy has a image of the author much less fig-leafed than the one shown above) suggest that Wurtzel is looking for shock value to draw in readers. She does have some interesting and different insights on Amy Fisher and other women, asseen through the lens of her own troubled past. Wurtzel starts out with a funny, frenetic rant on women's treatment in even the most modern history, but has trouble sustaining the pace, and eventually grows repetitive, and a little self-centered for my taste.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, so that's why we do what we do....
Review: Can sex-pots and feminists get along? Elizabeth Wurtzell thinks so. Wurtzell is an amazingly acute author, making each painfully sharp point by point without even stopping to take a breath. No dull stuff here. Wurtzell is brilliant, observant, and essentially witty. She has taken the schizophrenic topic of what it means to be a sexually attractive woman and has laid out for us the sociological implications. While Wurtzell does indeed "Praise" these women, she also details lives ended in isolated tragedy, insatiable hunger, and unattainably beautiful disaster. In this era of post-Packwood America, Wurtzell makes a case for flaunting sexuality and using whatever God himself was irresponsible enough to give you for your own needs. All I can say is Wurtzell needs to go on more binges.
Rating: 
Summary: Enlightening
Review: Us females are always told we are confusing, complex etc, etc. This book gave me an insight into our wild and winsome ways - the follow up book 'The Bitch Rules' has become my own personal bible in following my head and heart to find true happiness. This woman knows her stuff. Well done Elizabeth - you have helped me better than any therapist.
Rating:
Summary: self aggrandizing - utter gutter trash
Review: I guess this is the fad of the week. Another cool rant from a modern day social commentarian, one that only the juvenile mind could possibly appreciate. What a boring prattle from a spoilt brat of an "author". Shes obviously made a mess of her life, and is so self absorbed that she feels it is important enough to interest somebody. the only people who could gain from this drivel are other self pitying kindred spirits who want to damage their lives even more. Has humanity sunk so low? Heres a piece of advice for the author and any would be readers: Take responsibility for your actions in life, for you bare the consequences.
Rating:
Summary: Give her a break
Review: So what if it's written in a stream of consciousness style, so what if it's self-indulgent. It's interesting, it's intelligent. Wurtzel takes a topic many young women find to be dull or uncool and breathes life into it. She's very aware of the world around her, she pulls illustrations from such various sources as Dante, Greek mythology and tabloid headlines. And it works. Wurtzel sees the big picture, how it all fits together. Going to Harvard doesn't automatically make her a spoiled brat. She's intelligent, she's knowledgeable - these are adjectives we don't like to attach to gen-xers. She has something important to say and she says it in her own stylish, witty, and yes, sometimes verbose way. So this isn't your average book of essays. So the writing isn't as terse as it could be. So what. It's creative. It's colorful. It's different. And it's damn fun to read. Give her a little credit, and lighten up a bit.
Rating:
Summary: Hype, hype, hype
Review: Other than the cover, the book is a serious disappointment. So much for Harvard, I guess. Wurtzel, to begin with, needs to find an editor. The one she has either was in a coma, or deceased. Wurtzel would also do well to research a little, maybe remove some her superficial opinions (straight out of Cosmo, I bet) and put in some substance. Sometimes Wurtzel sounds like she is glorifying the worst side of women. One wonders if she is being ironic or if she is dead-serious. She writes well, but the book is terribly organized, and her message, which seems to be "use men however you want, whenever you want" flies in the face of the oppression she seems to be against. An overall waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating stuff by a fascinating writer
Review: A couple of years ago I read Prozac by the same author and I was really interested in new work of Miss Wurtzel. The book really reads as a amphetamine rush, deeply felt, passionate on the subject but sometimes a little overlong. And the fact that Miss Wurtzel does understand the effect of humour next to a serious subject is only a pro. For a lady Miss Wurtzel really has cojones (and that's a compliment for you).
Rating:
Summary: She can write, but she needs to slow down and get an editor
Review: This is an interesting and provoking book (in more ways than one). Wurtzel's mind ranges across a variety of topics, from pop culture and pop villains (from Amy Fisher to Hillary Clinton) to Orthodox Judaism and spiritual values in the widest sense of the term. I especially liked her thoughts in the Fisher chapter (not so much about the girl herself, but what men and the culture make of relatively innocent/ignorant but nubile teenaged females), and on the role Nicole Brown Simpson and her family played in her ultimate fate. Unfortunately, the book often rambles (my eyes tended to start skimming paragraphs at times), and Wurtzel is prone to shooting off her mouth both in terms of snap judgments about vast sociological phenomena and in condemning celebrities for this or that lapse in taste or behavior. She's especially stupid in her statements about men -- not particular men, but all men -- which reminded me of Collette Dowling's _The Cinderella Complex_; both authors may have a lot of important things to say about how women think and feel, but they parrot many of the usual lies about men. At the same time, Wurtzel tends to want to brag about her own achievements and misbehavior -- not in any instructive detail, just breezy asides. There's a thoughtful, sensitive woman behind this book, and one gets glimpses of her along the way, but she's often outyelled by a grandstanding girl who has her eye on manufacturing an image that gets attention and sells books. And I'm not sure what a lot of the admittedly entertaining prose has to do with proving her thesis, whatever it is. She thanks a lot of people for advice and editing, but I'm afraid they just didn't do enough.
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