Rating: 
Summary: Quite Bitchy
Review: Yes, I grant that some of her book reads like an amphetamine-rushed thought-train headed off the tracks, but keeping up with her is not hard and quite worth the true laughter that bursts forth to ring in the room like music. Her humor is genuine and her intelligence evident, and what better way to praise difficult women than by being one?
Rating: 
Summary: An exercise in self respect
Review: What a great book! Not just for difficult women, but for all women. It deals with all the stereotypes women have dealt with for centuries. Sheltered or narrow minded women probably won't understand it and therefore will hate it-but who cares! I've still recommended it to everyone I know.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and Insightful
Review: Elizabeth Wurtzel illuminates the multi-faceted, often maddening but always enlightening personality of the modern woman. I picked this one up right after reading Naomi Wolf's much more academic "The Beauty Myth," and found myself devouring it in large chunks. Much of this can be attributed to Wurtzel's unfailing ability to weave a sardonic sense of humor with some piercing insights on women and their rather confusing place in American modern culture. She writes like a woman with little time to spare, and it will keep you glued to the page. Her chapter on Hillary Clinton, which includes some controversial but agreeable theories on the role of the First Lady, is a standout. Read this book if you want to understand what it's like to be a young woman in America - nay, the world - today. It'll get you thinking, even when you're ready to throw your hands in the air in exhaustion.
Rating:
Summary: All women should own a copy of this book!
Review: Very good book. I strongly disagree with the idea that she is "self indulgent". She has her own opinions and mind and not afraid to share her thoughts. Although I do not agree with her on all fronts, I do think there is some truth to what she has to say. Above all she makes you think. And in this society that is has become a commmodity.
Rating: 
Summary: Self-indulgent Ivy League spoiled brat
Review: This is a book demanding, no screaming, to be acknowledged as having something provocative to say, and Wurtzel hooks the reader in with the title and opening chapter. But the rest is a dreary, disappointing mess, unfortunately too typical of the self-indulgent GenX masquerading as feminist protest. Wurtzel starts off with a promising thesis -- how tough, demanding women are still feared and loathed in American society. But she blows it almost from the opening pages. In triumphing over the supposed demise of the good girl, she starts off a paragraph with "And now that Mother Teresa is finally dead . . . " Damn that nun for complicating a good storyline! It only descends from there, into tirade after tirade, the kvetches of a spoiled little rich girl who doesn't seem to be getting her way, despite an Ivy League education, extensive interviews and television appearances and the spoils of whiny celebrity that typify the '90s. She wails for virtually all of the next 400 pages, drowning out whatever good points are there for picking apart, unable to examine them with any intelligence. It's as though she's totally unaware that women who break the societal mode -- men too -- implicitly understand that there are tradeoffs for their independence, nay, their bitchiness. She wants society to fully accept her neuroticism, self-indulgence, her absorption into her own problems. Instead of bemoaning how society is leery of difficult women, she would be wise to study the history of art. Instead of trashing such perceptive feminist critics like Camille Paglia, she should listen to those who know that women's power is "pussy power," in the very old-fashioned sense. Better yet, she should plop some old film noir videos in the VCR to get a real clue. Her manifesto is nothing more than an ode to personal selfishness, as evidenced once more by a passage in the introduction: "...frankly, I have a tough time feeling that feminism has done a damn bit of good if I can't be the way I am and have the world accommodate it on some level." A baby in a high chair? Perhaps, but I think I hear a Leslie Gore song in the background. Grow up, Liz, and get off the chemicals, and you'll discover that your type not only is accommodated, but it's revered in our tell-it-all, tabloidized, Oprah-ized society.
Rating:
Summary: Counterfeit "feminism" at its worst.
Review: Wurtzel basically presents herself as a latter-day Helen Gurley Brown, with a Nineties-postmodern-in-your-bleeping-face twist, in this execrable work. While her self-indulgent rambling and overarching 'tude may be entertaining in a certain light, the fact that "Bitch" is taken at all seriously as a work of "feminist literature" speaks volumes about how a once-proud sociopolitical movement as been co-opted, like most everything else, by the social, moral, and intellectual wasteland of corporate-controlled pop culture. Quit trying to change the world, Wurtzel is telling women (and men, too), and look out for Numero Uno! But those women (and there are many) who aren't rich, gorgeous Manhattanites will have little to glean from her example. As a male, I happen to like women who are tough, self-confident, and willing to fight for themselves, for other women, and for other worthy causes. But "bitchiness," as defined by Wurtzel, seems like little more than the pursuit of decidedly antisocial and irresponsible ends. Being able to throw a temper tantrum at Bloomie's? This is what Anthony and Stanton and Steinem put themselves into battle for? And doesn't Wurtzel have anything to say about black women,poor women, or working moms, or abused and battered women here in America and around the world? Oh, that's right; Wurtzel's a card-carrying member of the cultural, social, and economic elite. Why SHOULD she be unduly concerned about anything beyond herself? The saddest thing of all is how many of my own gender will be attracted to a woman like Wurtzel, because she lives up to all their darkest mysogynistic fantasies. Embrace this kind of absolute garbage as "feminism"? I don't know 'bout the girls, but as Sam Goldwyn said, "Include me out."
Rating:
Summary: Vapid, Insipid, and just plain awful!
Review: I enjoyed Wurtzel's first effort and eagerly awaited the publication of Bitch. Bitch was not what I had expected or hoped for. The stream of consciousness style, in which Bitch is written, does not suit her. The result is that Bitch reads like an amphetamine fueled rant on pop culture.
Rating:
Summary: Good, if Inconsistant
Review: I liked here idea that difficult women are the interesting ones, and though they are tough to love, it is often worth the the effort. Well worth the read. I read the English (if printed in Finland!?) edition of the book after catching her on and English chat show. I wonder if her English editors did not do the job that they should have done, because there are statements of fact in the book that are just plain not true (She called Nietzsche an anti-semite). It was occasional lapse of discipline that stick out os a genuinely passionate work. I'm looking forward to her next work, and be glad to volenteer my proof-reading help.
Rating:
Summary: Original, Insightful, Humorous
Review: I bought this book because customers tended to rate it at one end of the spectrum or the other. This, of course, shows that the book is controversial, and oftentimes the most controversial book is the most interesting to read. I was not disappointed here. Concededly, the author tends to ramble on and on at times over the same point(s), but this is truly original and gutsy writing!! I certainly don't agree with all of the author's opinions, but I think her ideas are refreshing and insightful. A welcome change from the "spiritual" and "new-age" natures of many books about or for women.
Rating: 
Summary: Confused and confusing, but with nuggets of insight.
Review: The subtitle of the book, "In Praise of Difficult Women", is misleading if it is judged by the examples of so-called "difficult" women that Ms. Wurtzel pushes forward onto her stage. Delilah (of Bible infamy) can't be termed "difficult"; she's too obscure a reference. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton weren't "difficult"; they were psychological cripples that became casualties of life. Amy Fisher isn't "difficult"; she's just pathetic. Hillary Clinton isn't "difficult", just annoying. Nicole Brown Simpson wasn't "difficult", but pathetic AND irrelevant to those of us with real lives to lead. Oh, please! I would rather Ms. Wurtzel had chosen women that were "difficult" because they strove mightily to be masters of their own lives, made a significant impact on the societies they lived in, were otherwise "normal", and died of natural causes with assured places in human history. As an amateur student of England and all things English, two remarkable women immediately come to mind: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Elizabeth I. The former (and my favorite), first Queen of France then Queen of England, confounded the lives and kingdoms of her two royal spouses, was divorced by one and imprisoned by the other, yet managed to outlive both with honor, possessions and identity intact. The latter, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen of England, had no man as master during a long reign that saw the beginnings of Britannia's rise to superpower status. I'm sure there must have been (and are now) women of other nationalities and cultures that Ms. Wurtzel could have chosen rather than the misfits and/or outright losers that she did. (In all due fairness to Hillary Clinton, she doesn't fit into either category quite yet. However, she's got a long way to go before she's anything other than a footnote to history and Slick Willy.) Also, the author didn't always seem quite convinced that her ideal, feminist world could, in fact, be realized. At several points in the narrative, she'd appeared almost willing to regress into a more traditional role simply because it would take too much of her life's energy to do otherwise. This backsliding rendered her message ambiguous, and the point she was trying to make with this book exceedingly murky. Of course, being a man, I probably just don't, and can't, understand. With all this said, however, and despite Mr. Wurtzel's style that was too often rambling and directionless, I very much enjoyed her occasional nuggets of wisdom and insight, especially in those chapters that had Hillary and Nicole as the main players. After all, I finished the book, and that makes it at least a "6" on a scale of 10. Life is too short, with too many books to read, for anything less.
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