Rating: 
Summary: Eh...
Review: Though this book reads like a series of feature articles in Seventeen magazine, no theories are explored or conclusions drawn, and the author makes a few gag-inducing statements in the beginning--In an attempt to distinguish herself from the typically silly girls in the sorority rush piece, she compares the surfboard-swinging boys of L.A. to the intellectual Manhattan boys she'd chatted with the night before who "jousted over interpretations of Joyce. "-- it does have some merit. It is often informative and brings awareness to some rites of passage that are not widely experienced. The pieces about the debutante ball and Burning Man festival were particularly enlightening to this somewhat typical, Midwestern, working class girl.
I can't recommend this book as anything more than a light afternoon-at-the-pool read or as filler for a bathroom magazine rack, but I do still recommend the author. Don't let this lackluster effort scare you away from reading anything else by her. I'm halfway through her novel, "And Now You Can Go" and it is wonderful...
Rating: 
Summary: Accurate and entertaining
Review: Vedela Vida's book is funny at times, and always rings true.I have only participated in one of the rituals that she desribes, but she is totally accurate in her portrayal.In addition, she does not pass judgement on any of her subjects.She tells a story, good and bad, of why young women enter into the communities they do. I only give it 4 stars because the epilogue, though interesting, seems to be misplaced.
Rating: 
Summary: Sugar and spice and everything nice?
Review: Vendela Vida has put the nail in the head with this book. The issues that are discussed here -- female gang and cult initiations, teen marriage, promiscuity -- are very accurate and, despite having witnessed this sort of thing in real life, shocking. Vida has evidently done her homework. She has proven that young women today aren't the shadow of how they're perceived by family members. Are girls still considered to be sugar and spice and everything nice? Not according to this incredible work of non-fiction. I highly recommend this engrossing and honest book.
Rating: 
Summary: One really good portrait; the rest are run-of-the-mill....
Review: Vendela Vida's work might be an impressive first, but only if she can manage in her next book to remain at her best: slightly self-deprecating, really smart, and funny, and not fall into writing smugly and in trite fashion, as she falls to in a couple of these portraits (most notably those on witches and teen-brides). I liked this book in that I couldn't put it down: that's enough to get it three stars, especially considering it was written by someone only a few years older than myself. Her chapter on sororities shows her as a brilliant writer: she sets up nice contrasts, has a great voice, and doesn't fall into the kind of middle-upper class prudish look-down-her nose muddle that it seemed to me that she did when she wasn't dealing with people who didn't go to Middlebury or Columbia; Jim Goad's "The Redneck Manefesto" might give her a grasp of how the other half lives... BUT she's a good writer-- not my favorite young one I've ever read-- but really promising and good. And it's a neat study. I liked reading it....
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