Rating: 
Summary: fascinating....almost too fascinating
Review: there's a plethora of reader's perspectives one could take into accessing this fantastic work, that reads as quickly and easily as a novel (minus the stopping upon having your own personal schema accessed). this is a brilliant gender studies read as well as a potential parenting guide...unfortunately, the book ends almost too quickly, not fully joining all loose ends, and merely glancing at the notions of boys in the world of high school politics.
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Summary: Inside the (Young) Female Mind
Review: This book has so much valuable information regarding both young females and males. I checked it out of the library, but it is so good that I will buy it for myself. After much trouble understanding my daughter, her rebellion, her lack of sociability with peers whom I deemed "socially acceptable", I was relieved to finally be able to see clearly how she was being shaped by her world. I would highly recommend this book to parents, health professionals, and teachers (I am or have been all three of these)!
Rating: 
Summary: yikes
Review: This book is about how to talk to your daughters about things. The author gives horrible ways for you to sit down and talk. Ok and the situations don't happen in middle school or high school that happen in the book. Wiseman went to my cousins school for like 2 months and took the worst events and made them sound worse then they were. Now they are making a movie called "Mean Girls." The things the author tells is not at all helpful.
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Summary: Queen Bees & Wannabes
Review: This book is extremely helpful in understanding what goes on with girls socially. It is depressing, but true. I just wish I had this book sooner to help my older daughter when she was going through the middle school turmoil. It is a must read for every parent with a daughter.
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Summary: Not culturally sensitive
Review: This book is great if you come from WHITE AMERICA! I am sorry but I think we need authors who write books such as this to research more on other cultures rather than white suburban cities. Each culture is different when I comes to cliques, gossip and bullying in schools. It will be hard for me to apply this to my school since I am a counselor in a Native American community.
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Summary: Peer Groups Decide
Review: This important book describes the world of teenage girls as it is, not as we wish it to be, which is why many readers have a problem with it. In the last 10 years, the evidence has mounted that peer groups influence teens more than parents, clergy, siblings or even genetics. The hard-edged humor is a wake-up call to parents who want to understand the world their teen girls really live in, and how to deal with it. My other favorite parenting book--on a much lighter note--is "I Sleep At Red Lights: A True Story of Life After Triplets," by Bruce Stockler, a funny, brazenly honest account of juggling marriage, work, money and kids.
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Summary: You need this! Practical and inspirational!
Review: This is a truly remarkable book, extremely well-organized, inspirational, and full of real practical advice. Wiseman first details the different social roles girls play in adolescent 'societey' - what she calls "Girl World" - such as the Queen Bee, the Banker, the Target. Then she describes the different kind of social dilemmas these roles can cause. But - most importantly -she tells readers (presumably parents) WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.This is not just proscriptive advice, although there is a lot of that too (e.g., "how to tell if she's had a party while you were away"). One thing that really impressed me about Wiseman's approach is that she gives parents an entire way of approaching problems that they can share with their daughters. In other words, she doesn't tell you what your rules should be (she leaves that to YOU, thank goodness), but she does tell you how to get your daughter to think about why you as a parent have created them and your family's values should mean to her. A second thing that really impressed me about this book is that it is wholly non-judgmental: it does not divide girls into Good and Bad/Mean. If your daughter is a Queen Bee, Wiseman knows she has problems too, and she helps you figure out how to solve them. For more conservative parents, it's worth mentioning that this non-judgmental approach extends to issues of sexual orientation, including homophobia and same-sex attraction. Other reviewers have been rather upset by this, but keep the problem in perspective: out of 288 pages, I counted 4-5 that discussed homophobia in boys and another 4-5 around issues of same-sex attraction. That doesn't seem out-of-proportion in a 200+ page book if something like 5-10% of our daughters are gay. Wiseman's opinion on the subject is clear, but fundamentally she is arguing in favor of parents' right --and NEED--to communicate their own family values to their daughters. My daughter is only 3, but I can already see the social structure that girls impose on each other -- when she comes home saying "So-and-so says she is not my friend anymore." I am very grateful to Wiseman for giving me a headstart toward providing her with a healthy adolescence.
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Summary: Here's to Preventative Maintenance
Review: This reads like a chess manual for social interactions (or more accurately dysfunctional interactions) of teenage females with their peers. The goal of this book is to give parents insight into why certain situations occur and how to help their daughters address them. Politics are part of any social interaction but the compilation of scenarios in this book are complex and vicious. While informative, the book takes a reactive stance. Just how do girls get entangled in these webs in the first place? How do parents raise a girl to have enough sense of self worth to let ugliness roll off or stand up for whatever is right? This book is truly a huge inspiration to read books about child development, self esteem and socialization. These books in turn teach skills to help a child take control in a positive manner as opposed to being a pawn who takes the role of aggressor, accomplice or attacked.
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Summary: Queen Bees and Wannabees Helped Me
Review: Though I am not a mother trying to learn how to deal with my daughter. I am a daughter learning how to cope with my problems with other girls. Every one of my friends is jealous of me, and they would do anything to get me in trouble. Well, I was about half way through with the book and my friends all played a cruel joke. After I remembered what the book told me do to while dealing with a situation like this, I got through it. So, really I don't think this book should just be read by the parents, I think the daughters should read it too. Besides, problems could pop up at school and the girls wouldn't be able to get their parents help. If they read Queen Bees and Wannabees they would know exactly how to handle it.
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Summary: Wrongheaded and Stupid
Review: To think that my little girl because she is a girl would have an aggresive bone in her body is the dumbest idea that I have ever heard. Little girls are made from suger and spice and everthing nice and it is the boys that cause all the trouble. I am upset, ticked off at the notion that it is the other way around. The fate of the world rests with proper notions being taught about who we are and what we do and this book does not do that. Sad!
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