Rating: 
Summary: Informative Read about the Body Images of Women
Review: I considered the Body Project an informative read about how the body images of women have changed from the modest Victorian era to the now much more liberal period of the late twentieth century. I learned that there has been a massive transition from the past to the present. Its amazing that feminine products such as bras and tampons that women now consider ordinary were in fact only created in the 1920's. Brumberg comments that women have made a shift from internal character to external beauty, and she wants to initiate a reversal. This was ones of her main points, and whether or not Victorian women focused on internal chracter, it is important to realize now how prevalent the image of external beauty has become and its negative effects. Throughout the book she provided visual insight though pictures, and real life perspectives from a variety of girls' diaries. Overall, she creates a informative portrait of the body images that women have had to endure and continue to endure.
Rating: 
Summary: great information
Review: I found this book to be very helpful when writing a graduate research paper on the media effects on body image in adolescent girls. It also has a lot of other great historical information about changes in adolescent girls.
Rating:
Summary: A book for even the youngest of women.
Review: I intended to read this book for its insites on body compulsion, but found the history of American Girls and their values and virtues very interesting. The text is easy to follow and directed for informing the reader while enjoying the history of grandmothers growing up. I am twenty years old and found I would've loved to have read this book even before puberty and I would also recommend it to the women of my family. Overall, the book is very informative, interesting and worth the reading.
Rating:
Summary: I learned a lot
Review: I learned a lot from this book about the history of how girls' bodies have overtime become more and more public. It is such a compelling read! This book has inspired me to do something to keep society from affecting my view of my own body, as well as for future women and girls.
Rating: 
Summary: Not nearly as good as I had expected
Review: i picked up this book excited to read it. i thought it would be as informative and interesting as naomi wolf's "promiscuities." but it was not. i found the book to be boring. as a feminist and a women's studies major, this book offered me no new insight and it simply was not provocitive. if you are looking for a good contemporary feminist read, try something by namoi wolf or susan fauldi.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what the Title Promised
Review: I read this book expecting what the title promised: An Intimate History of American Girls. While it has much fascinating historical data, Brumberg's interjections of her own opinions about modern parenting and sex education is annoying. She generalizes all American girls, giving the impression they're a mass of promiscuous, immature girls who don't have Mommy figures that need to be rescued from the images of mass media. While many girls have these problems, she only once mentions the other half of girls who graduate from High School as virgins.
Also, her history starts at about 1820, about two hundred years late. I'm sure people would find it interesting to know Pilgrim women wore nothing during menstrutation, at the end of the day they just cleaned down there. (Doctors have speculated that due to diet differences, their periods were extremely light.)
This book is good if you're looking for parenting tips about modern girls and you don't mind the preaching.
If you want a real history read American Women by Gail Collins. It barely touches modern girls/women, but unlike this book, it lives up to it's title.
I would have given this book 4 stars, but I minus one for the misleading title.
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed this book
Review: I thought that it was very interesting to see how the perspective on girls and women has changed over the last century and a half. There is a price to be paid for gaining personal liberty. The book expresses the idea that the lack of organizations and female mentors has contributed to many of the problems or girls today. I have been reading some of the reviews of others here, and some people seem to be taking an overly harsh view of this book in some cases. Although it may not be the end all to end all on the topic of girls and their issues, this book is certainly worth reading and is not a waste of time. Also, someone made a comment about the book associating body piercing with homosexuality - I didn't notice that at all.
Rating:
Summary: Worth while.
Review: Insightful and well documented. An eye opener at the same time that it's an easy read. New-comers to feminism or body acceptance need not be intimidated. One can't become bored, and certain facts will stick in your head for years to come. The contrasts between the repressive yet virtuous Victorian culture and today's sexually charged and exploitive culture are fascinating. She glorifies neither. The author seemed to remain unemotional in relation to her subject and I felt this added to the impact and persuasiveness of her piece. I thought it could have done without the journal pieces, although I understand her intent was to put real faces on what may otherwise have become a monotony of facts.
It's very much worth rereading and it's one of my very favorite books.
Rating:
Summary: Worth while.
Review: Insightful and well documented. An eye opener at the same time that it's an easy read. New-comers to feminism or body acceptance need not be intimidated. One can't become bored, and certain facts will stick in your head for years to come. The contrasts between the repressive yet virtuous Victorian culture and today's sexually charged and exploitive culture are fascinating. She glorifies neither. The author seemed to remain unemotional in relation to her subject and I felt this added to the impact and persuasiveness of her piece. I thought it could have done without the journal pieces, although I understand her intent was to put real faces on what may otherwise have become a monotony of facts.
It's very much worth rereading and it's one of my very favorite books.
Rating:
Summary: Social history doesn't get better than this!
Review: Joan Jacobs Brumberg has attracted her share of controversy for this book and her earlier work in the field of "body history". The criticism lies largely in the fact that Brumberg does not fit easily into the pro-sex feminist/anti-sex traditionalist dichotomy that characterizes far too much of the discussion about young women's sexuality and body identity these days. Using diary excerpts as her core sources of evidence, Brumberg charts the changing relationship between young women and their bodies over the past century and a half. Though the material on the 19th and early 20th century is fascinating, useful, and accessible for a general audience, the high point of the book comes over the final two chapters, which cover the period from the 1960s to the 1990s. Unlike cultural conservatives in the feminist world (think Christina Hoff Summers or Gertrude Himmelfarb), Brumberg is deeply appreciative of the enormous benefits of the sexual revolution, especially in terms of the availability of sexual information and the growing willingness of our society to see women as active sexual agents. On the other hand (unlike a Naomi Wolf), she is troubled (and rightly so, in my opinion) by the eagerness of our culture to sexualize and exploit the bodies of adolescent women who are simply not prepared to cope with the emotional, social, and physical impact of early sexual experience. In her final chapter, Brumberg writes: "Although I applaud the social freedom and economic opportunities enjoyed by the current cohort of high school and college girls, their "autonomy" seems to be oversold, if not illusory." Young men tend to only applaud young women's autonomy when it leads to sexual availability, not when it leads to the decision to postpone sex; advertisers certainly only applaud young women's autonomy when it leads them to buy their products, not when it leads them to question consumerism itself. The more I hear the stories of my female students, of all races and socio-economic backgrounds, about the prevalence of eating disorders, their anxiety about their own bodies, and the pain of our casual and exploitative "hook-up" culture, the more I realize that Brumberg is right when she notes, in her conclusion, "more than any other group in the population, girls and their bodies have borne the brunt of 20th century social change, and we ignore that fact at our peril." It is not anti-feminist to want to protect young women from sexual and commercial exploitation; indeed, it is the essence of what it means to believe in women.
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