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Summary: If you know a teen girl..........
Review: please buy this for them. also "odd girl out". Girls need all the support of other girls. Also this book will help concerned involved mothers learn or rememeber themselves.
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Summary: Honest, Truthful, One of the best eyeopeners around.
Review: As one of those few whose written work was included in the book, I am honored to be apart of it. It's honest and truthful and hopefully has been able to open the eyes of its readers. Every girl who wrote a peice for it shared a little bit of their soul with millions of strangers who should be blessed by reading it. I hope more and more young women who read it become hopeful in their lives and see that you can make it through.
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Summary: awesome
Review: The stories in this book were so representative of my life, my fears, and that of my friends. It was inspirational, sad, and a good lesson. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: thoughts from our American daughters
Review: A poignant collection of writings culled from more than 800 contributions directly from the hearts of girls with various cultural backgrounds, ranging from 12-18, offering a real view on issues public & private, from body image to boys, politics to parents, school to sex.After reading Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia at age 16, Sara Shandler, so felt the absence of the voices of America's daughters she determined to find out & with a book deal in hand, this teenager wrote letters to high school principals asking their assistance. Framing each chapter are the author's reflections, offering both the comfort of a trusted friend who shares her own story & an honest perspective from within the eye of the storm of adolescence. Here are the voices of our Ophelias. Listen & weep, for they are coherent, lyrical & vivid & have much to teach us! An amazing effort! Put it on your shopping list for every girl you know & for anyone interested in who our daughters really are, out of their own mouths.
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Summary: Compelling
Review: I found the book very useful. It protrays the terrible problems many teenagers face today in a compassionate manner. If you are having a diffiuclt time with adolescence these stories will show you that you are not alone. The book does not pretend to represent a balance segment of the population but shows mostly people who are going through difficult situations. This is the kind of reading many teenagers are looking for in an effort to understand the world they are living in. Gripping read.
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Summary: Beautifully Written!!!
Review: Ophelia Speaks was a follow-up to Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia & it lived up to Pipher's standards when it comes to writing.Ophelia Speaks is really a touching book that gets to the core of adolescent girls' souls.It was right on target to how girls live today with the marks of how society has affected everything.Shandler chose very good stories from all of her entries & I really enjoyed this book.It is a wonderful novel that tells the truth about girls today & how they are living.I gave it 5 stars that it really deserved & I think it was very beautifully written & just a perfect novel for any teenage girl.
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Summary: Ophelia Speaks touches lives
Review: This book is not just some teen push aside book. This book has had the power to change my life by making me think about other people's situations besides my own.
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Summary: Every thought I had as a Teenage girl
Review: Wow! I read this book as a follow up to Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia. Reviving Ophelia deals with issues from a professional side. It too was a great read, but Ophelia Speaks was incredible. Every thought I had as a teenage girl and even now as a 25 year old was covered. It dealt with everything from relationships to eating disorders to death. Now I find the book even more helpful as a first year teacher. I teach mostly freshman. It reminds me that there are a million different things these kids are dealing with on a daily basis. I recommend this book to anyone. It's great for girls to see that they aren't alone. It's great for Mom's cause they've been there too. And it is even great for men, to see exactly what is going on in our minds! Get it. Read it. And share it with a girl you love!
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Summary: poorly written melodrama
Review: "Brilliant"? "Beautiful"? "Genius"? Did I read the same book as the other reviewers? I read this book when it first came out; I was the same age as its editor and I wanted to be proud of a peer's achievements. Boy, was I disappointed. Few of the book's pieces were well-written, fewer still well-edited; here I was, the same age as the editor, working in an office doing some editing, only I was doing it well. Not that the pieces of writing were much to begin with; some teenagers have real problems and some have exaggerated, melodramatic problems, and the stories in _Ophelia Speaks_ seemed to fall in the latter category. Look, I have had friends attempt suicide, run away from home, spend time in mental hospitals, lose siblings--but that does not mean I relate to middle school-level essays about teenage angst.
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Summary: Jed Davis Girls' Basketball Coach/AD jlori81@gte.net
Review: Ophelia Speaks is a literary response to Mary Pipher's bestselling and sometimes controversial work Reviving Ophelia which was published in 1994. In this book psychologist Pipher, who works closely with adolescent girls, documented what she thought were the key issues and struggles for teenage females growing up in America. She did this through cases studies and careful analysis. Author Sara Shandler, a high school student at the time, took it upon herself to recruit girls from all over the United States to write about all aspects of being young and female. She was not opposed to Mary Pipher's work. In fact, it spoke to her positively in many ways. She just thought it would be a good idea for girls to speak for themselves. The result is Ophelia Speaks, a collection of essays on a variety of topics that girls chose to write about...family, friends, diseases, sexuality, death, depression, religion and others. The book is excellent in two regards. First, the stories often take you deep into the heart and mind of adolescent girls. You are struck by how insightful and analytical theses girls are, then thrown back by how fragile and complex their feelings are. The stories, picked by Sara Shandler, are well-written and sincere although a few of them were written in the abstract and therefore lacked the clarity to fully understand the issue at hand. The second part of the book I found to be outstanding were the introductions to each topic. These were written by Sara Shandler herself. They gave perspective on the topic in question and introduced each contribution by giving the reader a taste of what was in store. She also adds a little of her own experience so you get to know her a bit. My life revolves around coaching teenage girls in basketball. I also coach young girls in basketball. A book like this adds to my understanding of teenage girls and therefore helps me work with them more effectively. One of the things Shandler says in the introduction is that teenage " girls are incredibly complicated. " When you read the stories and begin to understand this, I believe it lends itself to patience and understanding. But the book's greatest value probably lies in the support adolescent girls can feel from reading these stories. These girls do not hold anything back and many of their reactions to life's experiences are probably universally felt by a lot of teenage girls. Any teenage girl who is feeling isolated or finding life to be difficult would probably benefit from reading this book. I highly recommend it.
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