Rating: 
Summary: Truly AMAZING!!
Review: Considering I am a 15 year old female, facing anoroxia, depression, thoughts of suicide, and many of the other topics Dr. Pipher discusses in this wonderful, amazing, moving book. This book is one that I finished in a single day, and enjoyed it so much, I recommended it to almost everyone I know. That is, except for my mother. At the time, I knew that if she were to read it, she'd find out what was happening in my life, and I just wasn't ready for that. She obtained her own copy, however, and now I'm in therapy, getting helped. This book has been a complete eye-opener for many people who were at first unable to understand what I was going through, but after reading this spectacular novel, they were able to comprehend much of what was happening in my life. this book shall be forever praised, and held in the highest regard in my life, all torn and tattered, highlited and bookmarked as it is. This will forever be one of the very best books I will ever read in my whole life!!
Rating:
Summary: Finally! I can understand my teenage daughters.
Review: I was bewildered when my 14 year old hid from school for 2 weeks, not any more. Now I know she didn't want to make wrong decisions and damage her own sense of values. I didn't know why my 13 year old was so defiant - now I understand. And I can almost understand my 17 year old leaving school and leaving home - she had matured way beyond girls her age and had no patience for the petty stuff of high school. Thank you Dr. Pipher for giving me the most useful tool ever in helping my daughters to grow! Can you maybe write one about adolescent boys?
Rating:
Summary: A book everyone should read!!!
Review: Reviving Ophelia, was the best book I have ever read. It explains why girls are the way they are, and all of the pressures we have to deal with. I should have all of the self confidence in the world, I am pretty, was voted most popular girl in my grade, got Homecoming Queen, am a total jock. To everyone else I have the absolute perfect life. But what everyone doesn't know is I have been battling Anorexia for the past four years, and it has been hell. I totally fit the Anorexic stereotype, I always want to be the best at everything I do. Looking at me you couldn't tell I am really anorexic, I look average, perfect for my size. This book had me see what it has been like for my parents the pain it causes them. This book just describes some problem that every girl will have in her adolescent life, and how we deal with it and how are parents have to struggle to understand us. I am so glad I read this book, I think it should be required for everyone, boys, girls, parents. It would help them understand us a lot better. Reviving Ophelia shows the problem with our society, the way they make girls want to be this and that so we can get all of the guys. Our society is what needs to change!!
Rating: 
Summary: Commonsensical Psychobable
Review: Pipher conveys valid issues concerning the plight of adolescent girls. The first few chapters were enlightening, a must read for fathers of preadolescent girls. Pipher could have made her point in half the book.
Rating:
Summary: Finally a book that teen girls can read and and relate to!
Review: This is the kind of book that I have been looking for. Besides the magazines that are on the market right now, which really do not have a full grasp of teen girls life, this is the best book for any female to read. I read it as a book for my junior english class, and finished the whole book in 3 days. It was scary that I could relate, if not personally to every story, but through experiences I have shared with my friends. I've seen some of my best friends struggle with eating disorders and depression. This book should be read by EVERY female out there. For teens to help them understand their problems, and for mothers to comprehend exactly what their daughters are going through. Life is so different now that it was 5 years ago. Every day high school girls have to put up with so much more than what their mothers think is actually happening. This book cannot have been written any better.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent eye-opener for adults and adolescents!
Review: I first read this book while in college (that was between 1992 and 1996). I really liked it. Pipher, through her use of case studies, revealed to me the plight of many teenage girls, lost because of various societal problems, including a culture which seems to prefer looks to brains. I felt so sad for many of these girls, and in fact, cried at times during my reading about them. But it wasn't solely a book that lamented lost dreams. It did offer hope, both through advice Pipher offered to parents, and through the case studies which showed the girls and their parents working together to make up for lost time. I felt very fortunate that I managed to avoid the problems as an adolescent in the 1980's (which were similar to the problems of the 1990's) due to my upbringing. In short, I suggest that adults and adolescents alike read this book. It's a real eye-opener and maybe, just maybe, can motivate change.
Rating:
Summary: Life is harder now, for adolescent girls.
Review: Mary Pipher PH.D has written the book! This is a book that explains why our young daughters feel, and behave as they do. It is not easy for these girls to grow up in this society that devalues, disrespects, and diminishes girls that are bright, talented, naturally beautiful and worthy of respect. As a mother, this book has taught me to continue to be the best role model of self-sufficiency and self-love. To plant the seed of sharing my thoughts and my balues with my daughter in hopes that it will grow later. The pressures today are different for these adolescent girls. The world of lookism and losing yourself to a culture that promotes and advertises thinness, perfectionism and sex is not friendly. In fact it is nasty and mean to these young girls. I understand better now what my daughter goes through daily. It is upsetting but at least I am more aware of what it is like to walk in her shoes. The stories of these young girls I am grateful for. Thank you for sharing, so that I may better help my daughter while going through these tough years. As a mother I thank you. As a woman I thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Pay attention to this one!
Review: All females should read this to understand themselves. All males should read this to try and understand their friends. Anyone who is ever going to interact with teenage girls should read this. The symptoms she writes about were ignored in me, and I wish people had read this book then. It would have made the past two years of my life a lot easier. Growing up is never easy for anyone, but for some girls it is a hell that they never want to remember again. This should not be the case.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS AUDIO-BOOK UNLESS YOU LIKE INFO-MMERCIALS!
Review: I couldn't wait to receive this book, having found the few selections I read quite interesting upon skimming through it in the local bookstore (which is why I ignored the negative reviews I read), but when I received it (the audio cassette version), I gained nothing but pure aggravation and frustration. I found myself repeatedly fast- forwarding, trying to find the actual 'text' -- the heart and significance of the book -- but I found nothing beyond a superficial outline of the female problematic. The entire tape presentation is little more than a person telling you some of the negative things that can happen to girls. If you are a female (especially one interested in this type of book) you already know this part; if you are a male, you need much more information than this -- you need the SOLUTIONS or at least some well thought-out options! None are offered or even hinted at. This 'book-on-tape' is just like an info-mmercial; it leaves you hanging on, waiting for some new and special product (e.g., in this case, perhaps, a new/unique method of therapy that's been shown more effective that the common ones), and just like most info-mmercials, when you finally find out what the product is, you say to yourself, "You must be kidding...that's it?!?" And if you, being human, are sold by the sales-bytes (which, in my case, was the skim-read at the bookstore) and happen to purchase this product, you may soon find yourself standing in a rather long line at the post office, waiting to return said product to its rightful owner. Be sure to bring a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Ophelia may be too Grave
Review: The author descries the role of society in the destructive personality changes that she sees in her young female
patients. We would be heartless not to be touched by some of these case histories.
These girls all seem to have one thing in common: the loss of their "true selves".
AYE, THERE'S THE RUB!
For the auther, the "true self" is always the pre-adolescent self.
Thus young girls who are aggressive as children and passive as adults appear to have lost the positive aspects of aggressiveness.
When girls and boys are asked to describe the kind of animal that they would dream to be, most of the boys describe themselves as preditors. Most
girls describe themselves as more passive creatures. One girl
even describes herself as a rose.
How sick to be a rose, when she could be a lion.
How could this child trade the killer instincts of a lion
for the calm, passive beauty of a rose.
It must be society that has emphesized the need for beauty to such an extent. Why else would a girl make such a choice, when all of Nature points towards the predators as the inheritors of the earth.
The book is worth reading because of its case
histories. It is also worth reading because of its
revelations on the lack of scientific objectivity
of its author
|
