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Girlhood
A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.
In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.
When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.
Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos’ characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.
In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.
When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.
Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos’ characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2021
1806 people are currently reading
64236 people want to read
About the author
Melissa Febos
21 books1,802 followersMelissa Febos is the national bestselling author of five books, including Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood—which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. Her memoir, The Dry Season, is forthcoming on June 3, 2025 from Alfred A. Knopf. Her awards and fellowships include those from the Guggenheim Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The British Library, The Black Mountain Institute, MacDowell, the Bogliasco Foundation, The Barbara Deming Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, The American Library in Paris, and others. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Sun, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Essays, Vogue, and New York Review of Books. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,969 reviews
November 11, 2021
Every woman should read this book. Girlhood is a collection of seven essays that focus on the period between adolescence and womanhood, a time when women initially reap the consequences of the ways that society and the patriarchy have conditioned us to cater to the needs and desires of men, while losing ourselves in the process. Melissa Febos uses some of the smartest and most insightful metaphors I’ve encountered as well as personal anecdotes to relay her messages. The topics covered by the respective essays are as follows:
"Kettle Holes"
- The complexity of "desire"
"The Mirror Test"
- Builds upon the notion that we are molded by society
- Self-actualization
- Origins of the word “slut” and how it’s evolved over time
- Shame
"Wild America"
- How adolescent standards of beauty and existence influence the ways in which we are perceived and perceive others through self hatred and projection
"Intrusions"
- The male gaze
-- The absence of male shame
- The pathology of victimhood
- Voyeurism and the “Peeping Tom”
-- Stalking as a medium for love and romance
---As perpetuated by media (movies, tv, etc.)
"Thesmophoria"
- The inherent complexity of the mother daughter relationship
"Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself" (my personal favorite)
- FOCUSES ON CHANGING THE CULTURE OF CONSENT
- Skin hunger (touch deprivation)
- Empty consent
-- Depersonalization
-- Fearful consent
--- Physical safety vs emotional relief
- The lasting effects of sexual trauma even when you feel as if you’ve never experienced sexual trauma
- Patriarchal possession and coercion
- Sex work and negotiating consent
- The fear of not pleasing
-- “...women tended to use their partners physical pleasure as a yardstick of their satisfaction…for men, it was the opposite: the measure was their own orgasm.”
- How do we categorize events that we feel don’t fit the accepted mold of “trauma” or “assault” but still do not qualify as healthy, enthusiastically consensual sexual experiences?
- The paradox of shame (protecting ourselves while protecting the male ego)
- The myth of sexual liberation through a white feminist lens
- Acknowledging the inherent female traumatization of the sexual conventions of heterosexuality
- Gender performance
- The inevitability of the male gaze
-- “...the apex of feminine beauty is nearly identical to that of physical powerlessness”
-- Sympathy vs emotional labor
-- Care vs performing care
-- Empathy vs accommodation
- “Yes means yes” as being an unrealistic model for consent
--The struggle of saying no (often out of fear of the alternative)
"Les Calanques"
- Self preservation
- Addiction
- Homesickness for a feeling unknown
- Maturity and coming into oneself after a lifetime of hiding
Sorry that this review is the longest of all time, but this is important stuff that every woman out there can benefit from reading about. I urge you all to do so <3
"Kettle Holes"
- The complexity of "desire"
"The Mirror Test"
- Builds upon the notion that we are molded by society
- Self-actualization
- Origins of the word “slut” and how it’s evolved over time
- Shame
"Wild America"
- How adolescent standards of beauty and existence influence the ways in which we are perceived and perceive others through self hatred and projection
"Intrusions"
- The male gaze
-- The absence of male shame
- The pathology of victimhood
- Voyeurism and the “Peeping Tom”
-- Stalking as a medium for love and romance
---As perpetuated by media (movies, tv, etc.)
"Thesmophoria"
- The inherent complexity of the mother daughter relationship
"Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself" (my personal favorite)
- FOCUSES ON CHANGING THE CULTURE OF CONSENT
- Skin hunger (touch deprivation)
- Empty consent
-- Depersonalization
-- Fearful consent
--- Physical safety vs emotional relief
- The lasting effects of sexual trauma even when you feel as if you’ve never experienced sexual trauma
- Patriarchal possession and coercion
- Sex work and negotiating consent
- The fear of not pleasing
-- “...women tended to use their partners physical pleasure as a yardstick of their satisfaction…for men, it was the opposite: the measure was their own orgasm.”
- How do we categorize events that we feel don’t fit the accepted mold of “trauma” or “assault” but still do not qualify as healthy, enthusiastically consensual sexual experiences?
- The paradox of shame (protecting ourselves while protecting the male ego)
- The myth of sexual liberation through a white feminist lens
- Acknowledging the inherent female traumatization of the sexual conventions of heterosexuality
- Gender performance
- The inevitability of the male gaze
-- “...the apex of feminine beauty is nearly identical to that of physical powerlessness”
-- Sympathy vs emotional labor
-- Care vs performing care
-- Empathy vs accommodation
- “Yes means yes” as being an unrealistic model for consent
--The struggle of saying no (often out of fear of the alternative)
"Les Calanques"
- Self preservation
- Addiction
- Homesickness for a feeling unknown
- Maturity and coming into oneself after a lifetime of hiding
Sorry that this review is the longest of all time, but this is important stuff that every woman out there can benefit from reading about. I urge you all to do so <3
March 11, 2021
The memoir I’ve been waiting for! It’s smart but approachable, pulse raising but soothing, tough but warm. I felt a lot of kinship through the pages, I expect many people will. Caught myself nodding along as I was reading.
dnf
March 26, 2023DNF 28%
Nie odpowiada mi sposób narracji. Może to nie jest moment na te eseje.
Nie odpowiada mi sposób narracji. Może to nie jest moment na te eseje.
January 11, 2021
Really loved this smart, insightful essay collection. I’ve taught “Intrusions,” which is included, since it came out, and the rest of the book lives up to it, forming a cohesive whole.
May 15, 2025
Reading Girlhood made me want to write about mine in all the ways it was both the same and different. Febos’ brave sharing of personal stories always came with a point to make and often included facts from feminist history—from the evolution of the word slut, to an analysis of social roles in Wharton’s, House of Mirth, to a thread about witchcraft, and a look at Cheever’s story, Cure—Febos proved agile in her overall message.
Her most compelling essay to me was the one about unwanted touch from an early age and how few choices women have in the face of it. Febos shows how all women hold this in common, yet each of us chooses differently when dealing with it. Febos no longer blames herself, yet sees her complicity— and shows how complicity is inevitable given the choices presented to women and girls. The author looks at how pervasive the after-effects of this treatment is in building meaningful relationships and careers. And she clearly addresses the schism in a girl’s life when she goes from unselfconscious participant to sexual object.
But perhaps mostly importantly, Febos examines how giving consent shouldn’t even be the line drawn: women are trained that another’s pleasure and comfort outshine the importance of her own. She’s programmed to say yes for more than one reason: to appease the conflict so as not to get physically hurt (emotional hurt is easier to bear and even easier to hide, right?); to not make trouble and drag everyone’s reputation through the mud; to simply not want to hurt someone’s feelings— to be a tease means a man has a right to his rage when he can’t have you, it’s your fault for stirring him up. None of these is revelatory, but Febos manages to show the unique way they can pile up against one another in a psyche when girls are forced to deal with them again and again.
This book looks at the cost of doing all that, how a string of behaviors can easily set every woman on course to letting herself be used, and how self-loathing or even just simple devaluing of self, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—we are objectified and categorized by ourselves as much as other women, always evaluating from the outside gaze.
My husband read and liked this, too, he grabbed it off our coffee table before I got to it and urged me to read it when he finished. I never would’ve thought he’d be remotely interested, but the historical facts, the research really stayed with him. He felt the last essay which was about her addiction to heroine and an escape to Paris felt tacked onto an otherwise cohesive whole. I, however, felt Febos was showing us yet another way that self-devaluing can manifest in our lives and create a struggle to survive, but I also get what he means about tone.
4.5
Her most compelling essay to me was the one about unwanted touch from an early age and how few choices women have in the face of it. Febos shows how all women hold this in common, yet each of us chooses differently when dealing with it. Febos no longer blames herself, yet sees her complicity— and shows how complicity is inevitable given the choices presented to women and girls. The author looks at how pervasive the after-effects of this treatment is in building meaningful relationships and careers. And she clearly addresses the schism in a girl’s life when she goes from unselfconscious participant to sexual object.
But perhaps mostly importantly, Febos examines how giving consent shouldn’t even be the line drawn: women are trained that another’s pleasure and comfort outshine the importance of her own. She’s programmed to say yes for more than one reason: to appease the conflict so as not to get physically hurt (emotional hurt is easier to bear and even easier to hide, right?); to not make trouble and drag everyone’s reputation through the mud; to simply not want to hurt someone’s feelings— to be a tease means a man has a right to his rage when he can’t have you, it’s your fault for stirring him up. None of these is revelatory, but Febos manages to show the unique way they can pile up against one another in a psyche when girls are forced to deal with them again and again.
This book looks at the cost of doing all that, how a string of behaviors can easily set every woman on course to letting herself be used, and how self-loathing or even just simple devaluing of self, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—we are objectified and categorized by ourselves as much as other women, always evaluating from the outside gaze.
My husband read and liked this, too, he grabbed it off our coffee table before I got to it and urged me to read it when he finished. I never would’ve thought he’d be remotely interested, but the historical facts, the research really stayed with him. He felt the last essay which was about her addiction to heroine and an escape to Paris felt tacked onto an otherwise cohesive whole. I, however, felt Febos was showing us yet another way that self-devaluing can manifest in our lives and create a struggle to survive, but I also get what he means about tone.
4.5
April 15, 2021
This is a collection of memoir/commentary essays about reaching physical/sexual maturity as a USAmerican female. It is chilling and terrifying. (I kept thinking that if Liz Phair hadn’t already used the title Horror Stories for her memoir, it would be the perfect title for this book.) Melissa’s experiences and reactions are deeply personal, but also universal. And I say that as someone whose life has been very different from hers — and yet so much of it has been similar.
Melissa reached puberty early, developing an adult shape at eleven. That shape profoundly changed how people viewed and treated her, especially male people. She finds herself approached and fondled by boys her own age, her friends’ older brothers, and adult men. She doesn’t exactly say no to these encounters. But she doesn’t exactly say yes, either. She finds herself trapped in a grey area that the patriarchy/rape culture deliberately keeps vague in order to excuse men’s terrible behavior and hold “women” — including people like Melissa who are not at all adult women, but still fairly young children — responsible for what happens to them.
This book explores the ill-defined and impossible burden placed on girls and women:
We are supposed to be the person who stops sexual situations.
BUT:
We are also supposed to value men’s emotions, men’s wants, and men’s comfort far above our own. So we are not taught how to say “no” and mean it;
We are not taught to value our own safety and boundaries in a way that allows us to say “no” without often immediately wanting to take it back in order to keep the man we’re with happy;
We are not taught how to tolerate men’s disappointment and frustration; and
Even if we have learned how to say “no,” the fear of angering the man and risking greater harm can still make women unable to say it safely, which leaves a lot of women having a lot of not-exactly-consensual sexual encounters with men who believe they have a right to women’s and girls’ bodies (and a right to shape girls’ “reputations,” another fraught, can’t-win-for-losing area).
This cultural conditioning is difficult to navigate even as a full adult. It is profoundly harmful when you are a child. I was lucky to be a late-developing ugly duckling; I got a lot less interest from boys and men than my prettier and/or shapelier friends did (although I had enough uninvited, creepy encounters to realize that no one perceived as female is safe from men). I watched a number of my high school girlfriends get treated the way Melissa did, and while I was aware that the male attention wasn’t always welcome or flattering, this book has made me reframe my perception of what was happening.
If you are a man who has made it this far in this review, I strongly recommend that you read the chapters “Intrusions” and “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself.” If you’re a friend of mine here on GR or just follow me, you’re probably a decent, feminist guy. Nevertheless, these two essays describe so vividly what it feels like to grow up female and navigate rape culture as a woman that they took my breath away. Then, after you finish, speak up and speak out. Girls and women shouldn’t have to be living our lives this way. But it will require men resisting rape culture messaging and men actively working to change the greater cultural narrative about women’s bodily autonomy to achieve broad results.
Melissa writes like a person who has been through lots of therapy, with lots of empathy and compassion for her young self. This book would have been unbearable without that kindness running through it. I also appreciated that she’s gay, and her very different, and yet sometimes not all that different (controlling girlfriend), experiences with men and women broaden the perspective of these essays.
I found this book deeply moving. It has also left me incredibly angry. I think this is a strong and worthwhile addition to rape culture awareness, with its blunt examination of the many situations that are not defined as rape, but are nevertheless violations, erasures of a person’s humanity, and that add up to a heavy psychic toll.
I apologize that this review sounds so straight and cis-female. The experiences and situations addressed in this book can obviously happen to anyone, and our culture hasn’t granted members of the LGBTQ+ community much sexual dignity or humanity, either. But I read this through the lens of my own life.
Highly recommended.
Melissa reached puberty early, developing an adult shape at eleven. That shape profoundly changed how people viewed and treated her, especially male people. She finds herself approached and fondled by boys her own age, her friends’ older brothers, and adult men. She doesn’t exactly say no to these encounters. But she doesn’t exactly say yes, either. She finds herself trapped in a grey area that the patriarchy/rape culture deliberately keeps vague in order to excuse men’s terrible behavior and hold “women” — including people like Melissa who are not at all adult women, but still fairly young children — responsible for what happens to them.
This book explores the ill-defined and impossible burden placed on girls and women:
We are supposed to be the person who stops sexual situations.
BUT:
We are also supposed to value men’s emotions, men’s wants, and men’s comfort far above our own. So we are not taught how to say “no” and mean it;
We are not taught to value our own safety and boundaries in a way that allows us to say “no” without often immediately wanting to take it back in order to keep the man we’re with happy;
We are not taught how to tolerate men’s disappointment and frustration; and
Even if we have learned how to say “no,” the fear of angering the man and risking greater harm can still make women unable to say it safely, which leaves a lot of women having a lot of not-exactly-consensual sexual encounters with men who believe they have a right to women’s and girls’ bodies (and a right to shape girls’ “reputations,” another fraught, can’t-win-for-losing area).
This cultural conditioning is difficult to navigate even as a full adult. It is profoundly harmful when you are a child. I was lucky to be a late-developing ugly duckling; I got a lot less interest from boys and men than my prettier and/or shapelier friends did (although I had enough uninvited, creepy encounters to realize that no one perceived as female is safe from men). I watched a number of my high school girlfriends get treated the way Melissa did, and while I was aware that the male attention wasn’t always welcome or flattering, this book has made me reframe my perception of what was happening.
If you are a man who has made it this far in this review, I strongly recommend that you read the chapters “Intrusions” and “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself.” If you’re a friend of mine here on GR or just follow me, you’re probably a decent, feminist guy. Nevertheless, these two essays describe so vividly what it feels like to grow up female and navigate rape culture as a woman that they took my breath away. Then, after you finish, speak up and speak out. Girls and women shouldn’t have to be living our lives this way. But it will require men resisting rape culture messaging and men actively working to change the greater cultural narrative about women’s bodily autonomy to achieve broad results.
Melissa writes like a person who has been through lots of therapy, with lots of empathy and compassion for her young self. This book would have been unbearable without that kindness running through it. I also appreciated that she’s gay, and her very different, and yet sometimes not all that different (controlling girlfriend), experiences with men and women broaden the perspective of these essays.
I found this book deeply moving. It has also left me incredibly angry. I think this is a strong and worthwhile addition to rape culture awareness, with its blunt examination of the many situations that are not defined as rape, but are nevertheless violations, erasures of a person’s humanity, and that add up to a heavy psychic toll.
I apologize that this review sounds so straight and cis-female. The experiences and situations addressed in this book can obviously happen to anyone, and our culture hasn’t granted members of the LGBTQ+ community much sexual dignity or humanity, either. But I read this through the lens of my own life.
Highly recommended.
November 6, 2021
Maybe I’m not in the right mood for this, I wanted to enjoy it, but I’m just not digging the writing and 50 pages in I’m not understanding why I’m reading this. The writing style feels hard to follow or feel engaged with. Maybe it’s just me.
July 18, 2022
Girlhood is an incredible collection of essays that are alternately personal, literary, analytical, and investigative in nature. Her writing is fiercely feminist, wonderfully queer, and dedicated to complexity. Febos tackles different narratives that girls and women are taught that prioritize the comfort, pleasure, success, feelings, etc of men over even women's safety, let alone their freedom or happiness. She discusses body image, sexual assault, empty consent, noncensual voyeurism, slut shaming, beauty standards, stalking, sex work, trauma, addiction, mother/daughter relationships, self preservation and coping mechanisms, and more.
Her writing is so smart and so beautiful. In the past when I've read her I obsessively kept track of quotations because so many of her words spoke so deeply to me and were so eloquently crafted. I listened to the audiobook of this one – read wonderfully by the author – and found a different kind of pleasure in just letting the beauty and wisdom just wash over me.
Highly recommended!
Her writing is so smart and so beautiful. In the past when I've read her I obsessively kept track of quotations because so many of her words spoke so deeply to me and were so eloquently crafted. I listened to the audiobook of this one – read wonderfully by the author – and found a different kind of pleasure in just letting the beauty and wisdom just wash over me.
Highly recommended!
January 9, 2022
I really wanted to like this book but had to force myself to finish. I was expecting insights into the teenage girl experience: interviews, anecdotes, comparative research. Instead, it's mostly about the author's not super-relatable life (her love/hate relationship with her hands, conflicting feelings about cuddle parties, going to France to kick heroin) and the style was way too MFA for me.
June 24, 2020
A gorgeously written, perfectly calibrated investigation into the traps, paths, and challenges of being female in this world. It's a stunner of a book.
May 23, 2021
Library -overdrive -ebook
Melissa Febos examines the culture girls grow up in - dark adolescent years ….
with personal stories- (eight essays),… examining girls changing bodies-
….compelling thoughts about beauty, tenderness, strength, prejudice……..
the burdens of beauty emphasis, abuse (subtle and obvious),
the forever mixed feelings about sexuality….
how the word ‘slut’ carries a dark cast over women…
how women have been made to feel like subservient inferior beast.
A valuable book for mother’s and daughters — for fathers and siblings - for friends - young and old….
A book that supports - empowers women with their own voices - setting boundaries- and finding their own value in the world.
These universal themes - call for discussions…to prod and pick at….
These essays - are an opening for ongoing needed discussions: about girls, women, feminism.
It’s another topic - we are not done having in our culture!
Melissa Febos examines the culture girls grow up in - dark adolescent years ….
with personal stories- (eight essays),… examining girls changing bodies-
….compelling thoughts about beauty, tenderness, strength, prejudice……..
the burdens of beauty emphasis, abuse (subtle and obvious),
the forever mixed feelings about sexuality….
how the word ‘slut’ carries a dark cast over women…
how women have been made to feel like subservient inferior beast.
A valuable book for mother’s and daughters — for fathers and siblings - for friends - young and old….
A book that supports - empowers women with their own voices - setting boundaries- and finding their own value in the world.
These universal themes - call for discussions…to prod and pick at….
These essays - are an opening for ongoing needed discussions: about girls, women, feminism.
It’s another topic - we are not done having in our culture!
August 28, 2022
4.5
Kurczę, świetne, zniuansowane eseje. Febos pisze o męskim spojrzeniu, codziennej patriarchalnej przemocy, slut-shamingu, pustej zgodzie i dziewczęcym dorastaniu, splatając rozmaite teksty kultury z własną biografią. Każdy rozdział ma swoją konsekwentnie konstruowaną dramaturgię i rozpoznania, które pobrzmiewają już znajomo, ale dzięki filtrowi ciała i jednostkowego doświadczenia nabierają nowego kształtu.
"Dziewczyństwo" może być terapeutyczną lekturą, nakłania do ponownego przyjrzenia się swoim nastoletnim przeżyciom, podsuwa konteksty i narzędzia do mówienia o nieuświadomionym wstydzie, o niesprawiedliwym poczuciu winy w zderzeniu z patriarchatem.
Polecam!
Kurczę, świetne, zniuansowane eseje. Febos pisze o męskim spojrzeniu, codziennej patriarchalnej przemocy, slut-shamingu, pustej zgodzie i dziewczęcym dorastaniu, splatając rozmaite teksty kultury z własną biografią. Każdy rozdział ma swoją konsekwentnie konstruowaną dramaturgię i rozpoznania, które pobrzmiewają już znajomo, ale dzięki filtrowi ciała i jednostkowego doświadczenia nabierają nowego kształtu.
"Dziewczyństwo" może być terapeutyczną lekturą, nakłania do ponownego przyjrzenia się swoim nastoletnim przeżyciom, podsuwa konteksty i narzędzia do mówienia o nieuświadomionym wstydzie, o niesprawiedliwym poczuciu winy w zderzeniu z patriarchatem.
Polecam!
August 17, 2022
I failed to connect with this book, though I wanted to, to really wade back into the complexities of being a young girl navigating her way into womanhood and remember it. I gave it an honest go.
I found the essays rambling, and disorganized streams of consciousness with attempts to be poetic that were sometimes cringe-y; it reads more like a memoir (was that what it was supposed to be?) I was hoping for a sage perspective on womanhood.
The most memorable take-away for me was the description of an attention-craving character encountered at a cuddle party who Febos describes as demonstrating "performative openness".
This openness misleads others as to her real needs or wants; Febos judges the woman's tendencies as ones Febos herself had exhibited in the past, but we are invited to judge the woman as not having achieved Febos' level of self-awareness, and to be frankly troublesome.
This performative openness struck me as what may be what left me feeling exasperated at various points throughout Girlhood. The number of times that Febos references her past as a "domme" when it doesn't feel necessarily pertinent, is just one example. Febos gets mired in attempts to speak for all women about the debt we inexplicably feel we owe to a patriarchal system, while repeatedly setting herself upon a pedestal of uniqueness; she assures us that she was never raped, while outlining many examples of sexual assault that she endured, but then claims to have consented to (wait. what?) Is the point to shock, write a memoir to set her narrative, or is it to provide insight on what it means to live through girlhood? Or is it an apt and vulnerable portrait of a woman who's just as confused and insecure about her place in this world as the rest of us?
Based on jacket reviews, I'd hoped for feminist insight, but I felt like the book fell short of providing a fresh perspective, despite Febos' tone that seemed to promise a call to action. Unfortunately, the final essay describes a self-care artists' retreat to a meditation spa in France, effectively removing the book from any kind of accessible place. Febos seems to often fall prey to the humble brag: in the final chapter, this takes shape as debilitating back pain that defies all pain medication, but that Febos is able to ignore during a high-endurance multi-hour hike that includes scrambling a precipitous rock face down to a secluded beach. One can either see this as vulnerability, and the relatable undulations we all have in our self-awareness, or -- is it disingenuous?
The reviews on the book jacket, and of other dazzled readers here, seem like descriptions of a different book to me. But I can see that Febos has reached many readers on a level that is meaningful for them, so clearly this book has much to offer for many!
I found the essays rambling, and disorganized streams of consciousness with attempts to be poetic that were sometimes cringe-y; it reads more like a memoir (was that what it was supposed to be?) I was hoping for a sage perspective on womanhood.
The most memorable take-away for me was the description of an attention-craving character encountered at a cuddle party who Febos describes as demonstrating "performative openness".
This openness misleads others as to her real needs or wants; Febos judges the woman's tendencies as ones Febos herself had exhibited in the past, but we are invited to judge the woman as not having achieved Febos' level of self-awareness, and to be frankly troublesome.
This performative openness struck me as what may be what left me feeling exasperated at various points throughout Girlhood. The number of times that Febos references her past as a "domme" when it doesn't feel necessarily pertinent, is just one example. Febos gets mired in attempts to speak for all women about the debt we inexplicably feel we owe to a patriarchal system, while repeatedly setting herself upon a pedestal of uniqueness; she assures us that she was never raped, while outlining many examples of sexual assault that she endured, but then claims to have consented to (wait. what?) Is the point to shock, write a memoir to set her narrative, or is it to provide insight on what it means to live through girlhood? Or is it an apt and vulnerable portrait of a woman who's just as confused and insecure about her place in this world as the rest of us?
Based on jacket reviews, I'd hoped for feminist insight, but I felt like the book fell short of providing a fresh perspective, despite Febos' tone that seemed to promise a call to action. Unfortunately, the final essay describes a self-care artists' retreat to a meditation spa in France, effectively removing the book from any kind of accessible place. Febos seems to often fall prey to the humble brag: in the final chapter, this takes shape as debilitating back pain that defies all pain medication, but that Febos is able to ignore during a high-endurance multi-hour hike that includes scrambling a precipitous rock face down to a secluded beach. One can either see this as vulnerability, and the relatable undulations we all have in our self-awareness, or -- is it disingenuous?
The reviews on the book jacket, and of other dazzled readers here, seem like descriptions of a different book to me. But I can see that Febos has reached many readers on a level that is meaningful for them, so clearly this book has much to offer for many!
April 7, 2023
4/7/23 I am raising this to a 4 from a 3. In the review I say it is a 3.5, and the fact that I frequently think about the book over a year after reading it has convinced me to round up.
It always annoys me when I read a review of a memoir and people complain because it is too self-involved. It's a memoir, it is by definition a book that involves the excavation and display of oneself. All that said, though this both is and is not a memoir, I am about to say something similar, but in my defense I will explain why this was an issue for me.
Febos is smart, a superb writer, and has interesting observations about how women are socialized to expect/allow unwanted attention/scrutiny/contact, how we are taught to do everything possible even if putting ourselves at risk, to keep men feeling good. This is a subject of great interest to me, something I am trying to cure myself of now that I am an old lady and it has far less negative impact (but better late than never.) Febos tells stories from her life and the lives of her friends that illustrate her theses. The most resonant to me, because it has happened to me and it shaped me, are the stories of women who apologize to the men who touch them without consent, whether some handsy finance bro at a bar or a rapist, for not having consented. It is a pretty common story. She makes solid points here about the shamelessness of men in everyday interaction, the expectations that women will accept, or even crave, whistles and gropes and peeping through windows, and sex when unconscious. They have no shame in part because most of the women in their lives have likely been reassuring them that its okay, and apologizing for making them do it. When I was young I cannot count the number of times I moved away from men who touched me and got a response along the lines of "hey, if you didn't look so hot I would have been able to control myself." Is that supposed to flatter me? It sounds ridiculous but even typing that makes me feel uncomfortable and a little disgusting many years after that stopped. And still I usually smiled like it was flattering and thanked them. Worse still were the many times that happened when I was with a guy and when he walked up the commenter said something like "sorry man, I didn't know she was taken." This conviction that women have no sovereignty, that they are there for the touching and comments, that they are there for the plucking unless another man has claimed ownership is horrifying, but it is also convincing -- I believed it in my marrow. There is a reason that other than for about 7 months after I was raped I had a boyfriend or a husband all-the-time from the ages of 13-42. I felt at sea and a little frightened if I did not have a man. That makes me sad to consider now, and that is the dynamic Febos is analyzing and talking about here. So why only a 3? (I would have given this a 3.5 if GR let me do that.) A couple things.
I know this is cultural criticism so the rules of academic citation don't apply, but Febos takes her experience and the experiences of four friends sitting in her Bushwick (I assume) living room and pronounces universal truths from that. I don't need footnotes or citation to academic journals, but I need some foundation other than "Melissa believes and asserts unequivocally" to accept her arguments. As I detailed above, a lot of what she says I believe because of my lived experience, it is true because it happened to me. BUT, this is not primarily intended as memoir, and for cultural commentary there has to be more than, this is what happened to me or Melissa or a select group of our friends. I cannot assume that it defines the experience of most people based on the fact that Melissa and our friends and I all have seen it. And more than that, someone reading this who does not have the lived experience (like, for instance men, who have the most to gain from her shining the light on this dynamic) could not possibly be persuaded from pronouncements without support. From those pronouncements the readers knows it is a cultural dynamic that occurs, not THE cultural dynamic that defines a statistically significant portion of the interactions between men and women. It might be, I think it is, but I need more than what she is giving me in order to accept that and in order to convince others to shift their behaviors.
Another major issue was that for all that resonated with me here, a lot was wholly unrelatable. If this is intended as pure memoir, that is fine and good. I want to read memoirs by people with different life experiences than I have. It helps me understand the world. But if you are writing cultural criticism, and opining on the ways in which the culture reinforces norms that are injurious to a large group (in this case at least 51% of the population) and if you are using your life experience as the support (often the sole support) for your criticism, your experience has to feel relatable to people. My GR friend Alisa said reading this was like when people bought The Step for their cardio, but ended up sitting on it and watching aerobics videos. I totally agree. Cultural criticism, to be effective, needs to nudge the reader into seeing the world through a slightly different lens. That is the point, to start a new conversation by getting us to see things that have become part of the wallpaper and then to question them, not to gawk. If what I am seeing is not relatable through experience or observation there is nothing to work with. Many of the things that make Febos interesting are the same things that make her unrelatable. She was raised essentially feral, with no understanding of how to live in the society she needed to navigate or to protect herself, and as a result was an outcast from the day she started school. Not surprisingly she looked for validation through sex, became known as the school slut, and left home as a teenager. More surprisingly she became a smack addict and a dominatrix and a woman who happily had a lot of sex with men and women and was able to maintain. Despite the drug use, she attended college, got her work done at her hipster alt-publishing job, and traveled to Europe. Eventually she realized she was really smart and had something to say, and also that she identified as a lesbian and wanted a committed relationship. She got clean and ended up as a tenure track professor at one of the best writing programs in the world and married to a woman who teaches poetry at the same institution and seems a strong support. Happy ending, great stuff, but not really filled with relatable life experience for most of us. So again, as memoir this was interesting, and even instructive and broadening, but as cultural criticism? I didn't really know what to do with most of this. I felt like I was sitting on The Step watching it. (On that subject, the essay about the "cuddle parties" was one of the most uncomfortable things I can remember reading, and also one of the saddest. How do we live in a world were people are that lonely and where people feel that a search for connection, warmth and comfort can be satisfied in such a transactional way?)
As I said above, this was a 3.5 for me. I am glad I read it, I want to read more from Melissa Febos, and I have people I would happily recommend this to (Kierstyn and Anita, I am looking at you!) It is interesting for sure, and she raises some issues I think are wise and important. I can draw a lot of lines between this and Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture which worked better for me. They make good companions.
It always annoys me when I read a review of a memoir and people complain because it is too self-involved. It's a memoir, it is by definition a book that involves the excavation and display of oneself. All that said, though this both is and is not a memoir, I am about to say something similar, but in my defense I will explain why this was an issue for me.
Febos is smart, a superb writer, and has interesting observations about how women are socialized to expect/allow unwanted attention/scrutiny/contact, how we are taught to do everything possible even if putting ourselves at risk, to keep men feeling good. This is a subject of great interest to me, something I am trying to cure myself of now that I am an old lady and it has far less negative impact (but better late than never.) Febos tells stories from her life and the lives of her friends that illustrate her theses. The most resonant to me, because it has happened to me and it shaped me, are the stories of women who apologize to the men who touch them without consent, whether some handsy finance bro at a bar or a rapist, for not having consented. It is a pretty common story. She makes solid points here about the shamelessness of men in everyday interaction, the expectations that women will accept, or even crave, whistles and gropes and peeping through windows, and sex when unconscious. They have no shame in part because most of the women in their lives have likely been reassuring them that its okay, and apologizing for making them do it. When I was young I cannot count the number of times I moved away from men who touched me and got a response along the lines of "hey, if you didn't look so hot I would have been able to control myself." Is that supposed to flatter me? It sounds ridiculous but even typing that makes me feel uncomfortable and a little disgusting many years after that stopped. And still I usually smiled like it was flattering and thanked them. Worse still were the many times that happened when I was with a guy and when he walked up the commenter said something like "sorry man, I didn't know she was taken." This conviction that women have no sovereignty, that they are there for the touching and comments, that they are there for the plucking unless another man has claimed ownership is horrifying, but it is also convincing -- I believed it in my marrow. There is a reason that other than for about 7 months after I was raped I had a boyfriend or a husband all-the-time from the ages of 13-42. I felt at sea and a little frightened if I did not have a man. That makes me sad to consider now, and that is the dynamic Febos is analyzing and talking about here. So why only a 3? (I would have given this a 3.5 if GR let me do that.) A couple things.
I know this is cultural criticism so the rules of academic citation don't apply, but Febos takes her experience and the experiences of four friends sitting in her Bushwick (I assume) living room and pronounces universal truths from that. I don't need footnotes or citation to academic journals, but I need some foundation other than "Melissa believes and asserts unequivocally" to accept her arguments. As I detailed above, a lot of what she says I believe because of my lived experience, it is true because it happened to me. BUT, this is not primarily intended as memoir, and for cultural commentary there has to be more than, this is what happened to me or Melissa or a select group of our friends. I cannot assume that it defines the experience of most people based on the fact that Melissa and our friends and I all have seen it. And more than that, someone reading this who does not have the lived experience (like, for instance men, who have the most to gain from her shining the light on this dynamic) could not possibly be persuaded from pronouncements without support. From those pronouncements the readers knows it is a cultural dynamic that occurs, not THE cultural dynamic that defines a statistically significant portion of the interactions between men and women. It might be, I think it is, but I need more than what she is giving me in order to accept that and in order to convince others to shift their behaviors.
Another major issue was that for all that resonated with me here, a lot was wholly unrelatable. If this is intended as pure memoir, that is fine and good. I want to read memoirs by people with different life experiences than I have. It helps me understand the world. But if you are writing cultural criticism, and opining on the ways in which the culture reinforces norms that are injurious to a large group (in this case at least 51% of the population) and if you are using your life experience as the support (often the sole support) for your criticism, your experience has to feel relatable to people. My GR friend Alisa said reading this was like when people bought The Step for their cardio, but ended up sitting on it and watching aerobics videos. I totally agree. Cultural criticism, to be effective, needs to nudge the reader into seeing the world through a slightly different lens. That is the point, to start a new conversation by getting us to see things that have become part of the wallpaper and then to question them, not to gawk. If what I am seeing is not relatable through experience or observation there is nothing to work with. Many of the things that make Febos interesting are the same things that make her unrelatable. She was raised essentially feral, with no understanding of how to live in the society she needed to navigate or to protect herself, and as a result was an outcast from the day she started school. Not surprisingly she looked for validation through sex, became known as the school slut, and left home as a teenager. More surprisingly she became a smack addict and a dominatrix and a woman who happily had a lot of sex with men and women and was able to maintain. Despite the drug use, she attended college, got her work done at her hipster alt-publishing job, and traveled to Europe. Eventually she realized she was really smart and had something to say, and also that she identified as a lesbian and wanted a committed relationship. She got clean and ended up as a tenure track professor at one of the best writing programs in the world and married to a woman who teaches poetry at the same institution and seems a strong support. Happy ending, great stuff, but not really filled with relatable life experience for most of us. So again, as memoir this was interesting, and even instructive and broadening, but as cultural criticism? I didn't really know what to do with most of this. I felt like I was sitting on The Step watching it. (On that subject, the essay about the "cuddle parties" was one of the most uncomfortable things I can remember reading, and also one of the saddest. How do we live in a world were people are that lonely and where people feel that a search for connection, warmth and comfort can be satisfied in such a transactional way?)
As I said above, this was a 3.5 for me. I am glad I read it, I want to read more from Melissa Febos, and I have people I would happily recommend this to (Kierstyn and Anita, I am looking at you!) It is interesting for sure, and she raises some issues I think are wise and important. I can draw a lot of lines between this and Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture which worked better for me. They make good companions.
October 20, 2021
Girlhood by Melissa Febos, a memoir and a collection of essays which focus on womenhood. The book is a wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.
In this powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.
We see Melissa Febos, noting down her journey from a teenager into a adult woman. The book is very raw, authentic and bold. The book covers topic like sexual abuse, gender inequality, sexism, etc.
The book may not be for everyone, so do read the trigger warnings before getting into it. But I feel everyone should definitely read this book. The book is very moving and I am shaken by author's incidents.
In this powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.
We see Melissa Febos, noting down her journey from a teenager into a adult woman. The book is very raw, authentic and bold. The book covers topic like sexual abuse, gender inequality, sexism, etc.
The book may not be for everyone, so do read the trigger warnings before getting into it. But I feel everyone should definitely read this book. The book is very moving and I am shaken by author's incidents.
March 1, 2023
GIRLHOOD is the book I waited for my entire life, words with which to articulate the unnamed perils of being female, being girl, the invisible social structures that altered my life and discolored my personality forever. This book is a reclamation, a victory, a triumph. Febos reclaims the girl lost to us all by finding language for the ways we are negated, disowned, distorted, used, and abused as well as the ways we unwittingly contribute to our own repression. I want every human to read this book. What I appreciate in art is truth and Febos has woven the truth of being girl in this culture in which we are embedded into a nest in which we might finally rest.
Read
November 9, 2022Heartbreaking and resonant.
January 15, 2026
"I would have liked the movie immeasurably better if, instead of being about a beautiful, smart virgin who acquired an unearned reputation and then cleared her name and bagged the super-nice boyfriend, it was a movie about a girl who actually had extremely hot sex with her queer best friend and then fcked a bunch nerds for Home Depot gift cards and was still presented as a sympathetic protagonist."
If you havent read Abandon Me by Melissa Febos, it is one of my all time favorite memoirs. Ever. I love it so much and I think you should go, immediately and read it. Girlhood was brilliant. It's a stunning, real glimpse into the difficult navigation and trappings of being a girl, evolving as a girl, the situations we find ourselves in and how we carry them with us at times unbeknownst to ourselves.
"When I think about healing in the abstract, I imagine a closing-up, or a lifting-up. In my fantasies, healing comes like a plane to pull me out of water. Real healing is the opposite of that. It is an opening. It is dropping down into the lost parts of yourself to reclaim them. It is slow, and there is no shortcut. Sometimes what I mean by healing is changing. A lasting, conscientious change in the self is similar to one in society; it requires consistent tending. It is sometimes painful and often tedious. We must choose it over and over."
"You can simply say, 'I'm done,' or, 'This isn't working,' he told us. As he spoke, I felt my eyes prickle with tears. What a simple and gorgeous idea that was. I thought of myself as a Girl and as a Younger Woman-with all those boys and men and even women who I had never wanted to touch me. I thought of all the women whose stories I now carried in me. What if we had all been taught that we could walk away whenever we wanted? What if we had learned that saying no was a Necessary way of taking care of ourselves?"
I can't wait for this book to release so I can haul a copy and mark it all up with my favorite orange highlighter, hearts, smiles and WTFs..because there are plenty in this book. Melissa Febos is the cheerleader all girls have needed at some point. Girlhood is brutal but can also be confusing as it is also one of the best times in your life, this book is such a must read!
If you havent read Abandon Me by Melissa Febos, it is one of my all time favorite memoirs. Ever. I love it so much and I think you should go, immediately and read it. Girlhood was brilliant. It's a stunning, real glimpse into the difficult navigation and trappings of being a girl, evolving as a girl, the situations we find ourselves in and how we carry them with us at times unbeknownst to ourselves.
"When I think about healing in the abstract, I imagine a closing-up, or a lifting-up. In my fantasies, healing comes like a plane to pull me out of water. Real healing is the opposite of that. It is an opening. It is dropping down into the lost parts of yourself to reclaim them. It is slow, and there is no shortcut. Sometimes what I mean by healing is changing. A lasting, conscientious change in the self is similar to one in society; it requires consistent tending. It is sometimes painful and often tedious. We must choose it over and over."
"You can simply say, 'I'm done,' or, 'This isn't working,' he told us. As he spoke, I felt my eyes prickle with tears. What a simple and gorgeous idea that was. I thought of myself as a Girl and as a Younger Woman-with all those boys and men and even women who I had never wanted to touch me. I thought of all the women whose stories I now carried in me. What if we had all been taught that we could walk away whenever we wanted? What if we had learned that saying no was a Necessary way of taking care of ourselves?"
I can't wait for this book to release so I can haul a copy and mark it all up with my favorite orange highlighter, hearts, smiles and WTFs..because there are plenty in this book. Melissa Febos is the cheerleader all girls have needed at some point. Girlhood is brutal but can also be confusing as it is also one of the best times in your life, this book is such a must read!
July 29, 2024
This book was inconceivably great & totally changed my life. It’s hard to find books that give words to some of the more hidden feelings inside of us, but this body of work did just that. In this collection of feminist essays, Febos writes about a variety of concepts like young boys treating girls poorly when they like them, the shame carried with early body development, the loss of wildness, learned femininity, living amongst male threats, the blame associated with that, the mother wound, the concept of empty consent & so much more.
.
One of my favorite essays was “Thank you for taking care of yourself” because I related so deeply. Febos describes in detail the reason why women give empty consent & betray their own bodies. “Our psyches prioritize the needs of men over our own, contrary to our actual beliefs and to the reality of our situations.” She interviews numerous women about their experiences of negotiating instead of saying no in sexual scenarios, saying yes because they feared their no wouldn’t be respected, etc. It’s a wild concept to analyze in my own life because it obviously carries out to so much more than sex (i.e. emotional labor, house labor). It all comes back to checking in with yourself & making sure you are at the top of the hierarchy of needs in your life. Easier said than done! Especially in motherhood.
.
Febos’ vocabulary was superb, her points succinct & not too drawn out. She always had a conclusion & got there quickly while also somehow including an immense amount of relatable detail & tidbits about her own life. To say this book was life changing is an understatement. The feminist theory she dove into was deep & it fueled many of the conversations I’ve had over the last month while reading this & I’m sure it will fuel many more. I read parts of this to my daughter despite her being 2 months old & I’m sure I’ll read it to her again & again & encourage her to read it alone at 20 years old. This was a true reflection of girlhood & the ways we are taught to exist in this world. It was a riveting read that focused on coming back to the self time & time again especially when it is most difficult to do so. BRAVO!!!
.
One of my favorite essays was “Thank you for taking care of yourself” because I related so deeply. Febos describes in detail the reason why women give empty consent & betray their own bodies. “Our psyches prioritize the needs of men over our own, contrary to our actual beliefs and to the reality of our situations.” She interviews numerous women about their experiences of negotiating instead of saying no in sexual scenarios, saying yes because they feared their no wouldn’t be respected, etc. It’s a wild concept to analyze in my own life because it obviously carries out to so much more than sex (i.e. emotional labor, house labor). It all comes back to checking in with yourself & making sure you are at the top of the hierarchy of needs in your life. Easier said than done! Especially in motherhood.
.
Febos’ vocabulary was superb, her points succinct & not too drawn out. She always had a conclusion & got there quickly while also somehow including an immense amount of relatable detail & tidbits about her own life. To say this book was life changing is an understatement. The feminist theory she dove into was deep & it fueled many of the conversations I’ve had over the last month while reading this & I’m sure it will fuel many more. I read parts of this to my daughter despite her being 2 months old & I’m sure I’ll read it to her again & again & encourage her to read it alone at 20 years old. This was a true reflection of girlhood & the ways we are taught to exist in this world. It was a riveting read that focused on coming back to the self time & time again especially when it is most difficult to do so. BRAVO!!!
January 8, 2023
"I DID NOT CHOOSE TO BE A SPECTACLE."
Puberty found me years before my friends even glimpsed it. It happened overnight. Now my body belonged to the boys on the bus and the men in the supermarket aisle. I got used to feeling like prey. Being blamed for every classroom indiscretion. I was always in violation of some dress code, but how could I explain that none of the clothes made for 11 year olds fit me anymore? No one told me what to do with all this newness, and while I wasn’t raised religious, I was sure that this new body was punishment for some terrible thing I must have done in my sleep or in a past life. Simultaneously, every television show I saw and magazine I snuck into my room promised me that it was a good thing, that I should want to be wanted, even if the wanting feels more like a hunting (or haunting). The worst part of all of this is feeling that you are the only one having this horrible time. This book delivered me the most priceless of gifts, a sharp reminder that I have never for a minute been alone.
If you hit puberty sooner than the text books said you would, read this book.
If you are considering experimenting with celibacy, or a momentary break from the dating scene, read this book. I’ve been celibate for nearly four years and never regretted a minute of it. But this book would have made some of the speed bumps smoother had I read it sooner.
If you’ve said yes when you wanted to say no, read this book.
This book asks a lot of you, requires a radical level of honesty and openness, demands of its readers to examine up close things we may want to bury. Power through it.
This book is a masterclass in boundaries, a feminist bat signal, a really magnificent thing. And I usually avoid nonfiction at all costs. So you know I mean it.
Puberty found me years before my friends even glimpsed it. It happened overnight. Now my body belonged to the boys on the bus and the men in the supermarket aisle. I got used to feeling like prey. Being blamed for every classroom indiscretion. I was always in violation of some dress code, but how could I explain that none of the clothes made for 11 year olds fit me anymore? No one told me what to do with all this newness, and while I wasn’t raised religious, I was sure that this new body was punishment for some terrible thing I must have done in my sleep or in a past life. Simultaneously, every television show I saw and magazine I snuck into my room promised me that it was a good thing, that I should want to be wanted, even if the wanting feels more like a hunting (or haunting). The worst part of all of this is feeling that you are the only one having this horrible time. This book delivered me the most priceless of gifts, a sharp reminder that I have never for a minute been alone.
If you hit puberty sooner than the text books said you would, read this book.
If you are considering experimenting with celibacy, or a momentary break from the dating scene, read this book. I’ve been celibate for nearly four years and never regretted a minute of it. But this book would have made some of the speed bumps smoother had I read it sooner.
If you’ve said yes when you wanted to say no, read this book.
This book asks a lot of you, requires a radical level of honesty and openness, demands of its readers to examine up close things we may want to bury. Power through it.
This book is a masterclass in boundaries, a feminist bat signal, a really magnificent thing. And I usually avoid nonfiction at all costs. So you know I mean it.
September 16, 2021
For the first quarter, I felt like I was paddling upstream against the oblique language and tone shifts. The balance of the academic, the anecdotal, and the poetic was off in the first few essays, but by the midpoint with the illuminating essay on stalking and voyeurism the writing improved or I finally clicked into its groove due to the more interesting subject matter. The remaining essays about consent and addiction were just as strong and kept me eager to return to the book.
Since the essays are relatively independent, if you are having trouble getting into the book also, try skipping ahead to the good stuff.
Since the essays are relatively independent, if you are having trouble getting into the book also, try skipping ahead to the good stuff.
May 22, 2021
These essays were a bit uneven for me, but when they were good they were very, very good. Contained many truths that I might have thought I knew but definitely needed to hear again.
August 20, 2022
Zbiór esejów, które zdecydowanie są warte uwagi.
April 23, 2021
Have you ever loved and connected with a book so much that you kind of had a conversation with it? Because I did with Melissa Febos’ Girlhood. From the forward I was in love with the way she could distill emotions and experiences into these incredible sentences that so perfectly evoke and give voice to things in ways I’ve never seen before but that had me nodding with recognition. So I began by highlighting these sentences and pulling the best ones (and oh, I have so many!) over to the Notes app on my phone. I often take notes and copy down quotes while I read with the intent of them helping me with my eventual review but this became something more. I started writing about what the quotes meant to me and even talking to them, talking to Melissa, I guess, but more to her work since I don’t even know what she looks like yet she writes with such a rawness that as readers we get to know a rather deep part of her.
I haven’t reviewed anything in so long and haven’t exactly been able to read much for quite some time and this isn’t and can’t possibly be the review it deserves to be because I simply have far too much to say and yet feel as if even if I said all of it, none of it would be remotely adequate. This was kind of one of those right books, right time kind of moments for me but maybe amplified due to the nature of the stuff I’m dealing with in my life, the sheer length of time I’ve been rather disconnected from the things I love so much (reading and writing), and the subject matter and depth of the book itself. I can certainly say if you feel drawn to this one- read it! But buckle up because it’s quite a ride, often bumpy, but a journey so worth taking.
Girlhood, is as rather obvious given the title, an essay collection about female adolescence. In many ways I would much more specifically say it’s about queer female adolescence and found it perhaps worth noting I remain blown away each time a queer writer- especially a queer woman writer (I mean have you ever been to a queer bookstore and compared the size of the lesbian section to the gay male section? Yeeeah...)- gets their unabashedly queer book published by a big mainstream publisher. This is still new and notable and yet sometimes the queerness is kind of hidden away. And broadly speaking I think this a book that every woman will relate to in many ways but many times I wondered if straight women would get it like I got it, relate on the level that made this book not just a great read but a great and special experience. But I can’t know and can’t possibly remove the queerness from my own girlhood and adolescence and I am certain the same is true for Febos but then let’s call it what it is- a story of queer girlhood and that is especially who I recommend it to, other queer women. Because I don’t think my experience and the way I connected with this one will be particularly unique. And that’s kind of the magic of it.
In her forward (or Author’s Note, I’ve realized it’s technically titled), Febos discusses how dark her adolescence was and how it seemed darker than the norm, yet by writing this book and reckoning with both her own story and that of many other women she spoke with while writing it, she found a sort of healing and realized that pain and darkness was rather normal, that so many of us have similar stories. I think reading this and going into it with that in mind helped me to re-examine my own dark and difficult teen years and to be so much more forgiving of myself and perhaps better understand the things I went through. In a sense, as Febos exorcised her own demons, I exorcised a few of my own. And the thing about our teen years and that darkness is that even when we survive and make it through to the other side, as Febos herself writes extensively about and as I’m sure most of us have seen- those experiences play such a role in who we become and linger on in so many ways we often aren’t even aware of.
This book may read heavy for some. It’s a very feminist text but in a very honest and raw, post Bad Feminist, sort of way where in one essay she and her friends joke about having a “patriarchy attack” yet the same piece much more seriously reflects upon the ways in which even the most feminist “do the work” types amongst us still regress and fall victim to toxic ways of thinking and behaving. There’s some really nuanced and important discussion there. Nuance is really one of this books finer points. So even though these essays delve into topics like sexual assault, addiction, the complications of consent (as in that we aren’t taught it, that so many of us give a form of empty consent because saying yes is often safer or easier than saying no), about self hate, changing bodies (especially if you’re one of the unlucky ones to be the first in your class to develop), and even just the idea of trauma in general and what constitutes trauma- Febos covers these topics in such well thought out, deeply delved, nuanced ways. Many of these are topics I would generally stay away from yet Febos covers them in a way that was so relatable but never triggering, and that for me, at least, helped facilitate some degree of healing. I think that is a very special gift.
Melissa Febos is a writer with much to say and a unique skill for distilling hard earned wisdom into these beautiful gems. And while her topics themselves may not be unique, what she has to say certainly is. Even beyond my personal connection with and conversations with the text, I think that’s especially notable. I don’t think most authors could pull off covering these topics, and so many of them in one book, and have so much to offer that differs from all that I’ve read before.
This book is a gift and one to take your time with. Febos pours out little drops of her soul into the page and if as a reader you bring even a little of your own vulnerability to it- you’re in for a special kind of journey.
I haven’t reviewed anything in so long and haven’t exactly been able to read much for quite some time and this isn’t and can’t possibly be the review it deserves to be because I simply have far too much to say and yet feel as if even if I said all of it, none of it would be remotely adequate. This was kind of one of those right books, right time kind of moments for me but maybe amplified due to the nature of the stuff I’m dealing with in my life, the sheer length of time I’ve been rather disconnected from the things I love so much (reading and writing), and the subject matter and depth of the book itself. I can certainly say if you feel drawn to this one- read it! But buckle up because it’s quite a ride, often bumpy, but a journey so worth taking.
Girlhood, is as rather obvious given the title, an essay collection about female adolescence. In many ways I would much more specifically say it’s about queer female adolescence and found it perhaps worth noting I remain blown away each time a queer writer- especially a queer woman writer (I mean have you ever been to a queer bookstore and compared the size of the lesbian section to the gay male section? Yeeeah...)- gets their unabashedly queer book published by a big mainstream publisher. This is still new and notable and yet sometimes the queerness is kind of hidden away. And broadly speaking I think this a book that every woman will relate to in many ways but many times I wondered if straight women would get it like I got it, relate on the level that made this book not just a great read but a great and special experience. But I can’t know and can’t possibly remove the queerness from my own girlhood and adolescence and I am certain the same is true for Febos but then let’s call it what it is- a story of queer girlhood and that is especially who I recommend it to, other queer women. Because I don’t think my experience and the way I connected with this one will be particularly unique. And that’s kind of the magic of it.
In her forward (or Author’s Note, I’ve realized it’s technically titled), Febos discusses how dark her adolescence was and how it seemed darker than the norm, yet by writing this book and reckoning with both her own story and that of many other women she spoke with while writing it, she found a sort of healing and realized that pain and darkness was rather normal, that so many of us have similar stories. I think reading this and going into it with that in mind helped me to re-examine my own dark and difficult teen years and to be so much more forgiving of myself and perhaps better understand the things I went through. In a sense, as Febos exorcised her own demons, I exorcised a few of my own. And the thing about our teen years and that darkness is that even when we survive and make it through to the other side, as Febos herself writes extensively about and as I’m sure most of us have seen- those experiences play such a role in who we become and linger on in so many ways we often aren’t even aware of.
This book may read heavy for some. It’s a very feminist text but in a very honest and raw, post Bad Feminist, sort of way where in one essay she and her friends joke about having a “patriarchy attack” yet the same piece much more seriously reflects upon the ways in which even the most feminist “do the work” types amongst us still regress and fall victim to toxic ways of thinking and behaving. There’s some really nuanced and important discussion there. Nuance is really one of this books finer points. So even though these essays delve into topics like sexual assault, addiction, the complications of consent (as in that we aren’t taught it, that so many of us give a form of empty consent because saying yes is often safer or easier than saying no), about self hate, changing bodies (especially if you’re one of the unlucky ones to be the first in your class to develop), and even just the idea of trauma in general and what constitutes trauma- Febos covers these topics in such well thought out, deeply delved, nuanced ways. Many of these are topics I would generally stay away from yet Febos covers them in a way that was so relatable but never triggering, and that for me, at least, helped facilitate some degree of healing. I think that is a very special gift.
Melissa Febos is a writer with much to say and a unique skill for distilling hard earned wisdom into these beautiful gems. And while her topics themselves may not be unique, what she has to say certainly is. Even beyond my personal connection with and conversations with the text, I think that’s especially notable. I don’t think most authors could pull off covering these topics, and so many of them in one book, and have so much to offer that differs from all that I’ve read before.
This book is a gift and one to take your time with. Febos pours out little drops of her soul into the page and if as a reader you bring even a little of your own vulnerability to it- you’re in for a special kind of journey.
February 2, 2022
Very very good, especially as a companion to the earlier Abandon Me.
May 11, 2024
Girlhood ist ein aufrüttelnder und nahbarer Roman.
Es zeigt auf, wie stark die Außenwelt und alte Werte unseren Selbstwert heute noch beeinflussen, und wie präsent Misogynie in unserem Alltag ist.
Definitiv konnte ich mich in einigen Erlebnissen der Autorin erschreckend gut wiederfinden.
An der einen oder anderen Stelle fand ich die Geschichte zu verwirrend geschrieben, und habe den roten Faden während des Lesens verloren.
Dennoch kann ich jeden nur wärmstens empfehlen, sich diese Lektüre anzueignen.
Es zeigt auf, wie stark die Außenwelt und alte Werte unseren Selbstwert heute noch beeinflussen, und wie präsent Misogynie in unserem Alltag ist.
Definitiv konnte ich mich in einigen Erlebnissen der Autorin erschreckend gut wiederfinden.
An der einen oder anderen Stelle fand ich die Geschichte zu verwirrend geschrieben, und habe den roten Faden während des Lesens verloren.
Dennoch kann ich jeden nur wärmstens empfehlen, sich diese Lektüre anzueignen.
March 15, 2021
Review to come but in the meantime- pre-order this book ASAP!
Want to read
June 23, 2021I need to hear this on audio. It's excellent, but I'd like to hear the author read it. I'm reshelving this one until the audio becomes available on Hoopla or Overdrive.
May 8, 2021
4.25 rounded down
I did not enjoy Melissa Febos' first book, Whip Smart. I picked this one up reluctantly, but with hope, and WHOA am I glad that I did. This is a fantastic book of essays/stories about growing up with a female body in a patriarchal culture. One of the stories that the author tells is about going to a cuddle party, where boundaries are encouraged, consent is required (and taught in the group circle at the beginning), and there are specific prohibitions on sexual touch. At the party, even with all of these guidelines in place, the author struggles to say no when she is not interested in physical touch. Later when talking with a friend about the fact that she knew she didn't want to be touched and found herself not able to say no even with supportive structures, the friend exclaims, "You had a patriarchy attack!..." and that phrase resonated SO MUCH for me. Like a panic attack, but brought about by the patriarchal expectations about how women are expected to move through the world - prioritizing the gaze and the needs of men, careful not to anger them especially while needing to reject them, because at best we are responsible for that emotional labor as women and at worst, it will provoke violence that will be deemed 'understandable'.
The stories that Febos tells are from the perspective of someone unlearning patriarchal ways of knowing herself and applying a self-referential lens to all that she has been told - by boys, and men, and teachers, and other women - about her body and how she is to act, especially as someone labeled as a slut from early on. As the author herself says, "But the stories those men tell about women, queers, or anyone who is not white? Power is required to inflict punishment and to revise the public record. You need a weapon to defend your own name. If you don’t have one, they can say anything they want about you. I don’t think my teacher meant that reputations are usually true in the Lacanian sense of a self that is built by social collaboration. He meant that if they say you’re a slut, you’re probably a slut. Which implies that a slut is a kind of woman, rather than a word used to control women’s bodies."
The Columbia Journal's book review and I agree that the essay called "“Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself” is perhaps the climax of the book, its most complex and radical comment about the power dynamics of sex. In the sprawling 76-page essay, Febos moves from topics like cuddle parties and “skin hunger” to queer relationship dynamics, the Panopticon effect of the male gaze, and affirmative consent. In the essay’s wandering, searching form, Febos creates a whirlpool of space to explore the ripple effects of sexual harm, away from patriarchy’s surveillance, judgment, and worn-out tropes. She also comes to a better understanding of what healing looks and feels like."
As the author says. "When I think about healing in the abstract, I imagine a closing-up, or a lifting-up. In my fantasies, healing comes like a plane to pull me out of water. Real healing is the opposite of that. It is an opening. It is dropping down into the lost parts of yourself to reclaim them. It is slow, and there is no shortcut. Sometimes what I mean by healing is changing. A lasting, conscientious change in the self is similar to one in society; it requires consistent tending. It is sometimes painful and often tedious. We must choose it over and over."
I did not enjoy Melissa Febos' first book, Whip Smart. I picked this one up reluctantly, but with hope, and WHOA am I glad that I did. This is a fantastic book of essays/stories about growing up with a female body in a patriarchal culture. One of the stories that the author tells is about going to a cuddle party, where boundaries are encouraged, consent is required (and taught in the group circle at the beginning), and there are specific prohibitions on sexual touch. At the party, even with all of these guidelines in place, the author struggles to say no when she is not interested in physical touch. Later when talking with a friend about the fact that she knew she didn't want to be touched and found herself not able to say no even with supportive structures, the friend exclaims, "You had a patriarchy attack!..." and that phrase resonated SO MUCH for me. Like a panic attack, but brought about by the patriarchal expectations about how women are expected to move through the world - prioritizing the gaze and the needs of men, careful not to anger them especially while needing to reject them, because at best we are responsible for that emotional labor as women and at worst, it will provoke violence that will be deemed 'understandable'.
The stories that Febos tells are from the perspective of someone unlearning patriarchal ways of knowing herself and applying a self-referential lens to all that she has been told - by boys, and men, and teachers, and other women - about her body and how she is to act, especially as someone labeled as a slut from early on. As the author herself says, "But the stories those men tell about women, queers, or anyone who is not white? Power is required to inflict punishment and to revise the public record. You need a weapon to defend your own name. If you don’t have one, they can say anything they want about you. I don’t think my teacher meant that reputations are usually true in the Lacanian sense of a self that is built by social collaboration. He meant that if they say you’re a slut, you’re probably a slut. Which implies that a slut is a kind of woman, rather than a word used to control women’s bodies."
The Columbia Journal's book review and I agree that the essay called "“Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself” is perhaps the climax of the book, its most complex and radical comment about the power dynamics of sex. In the sprawling 76-page essay, Febos moves from topics like cuddle parties and “skin hunger” to queer relationship dynamics, the Panopticon effect of the male gaze, and affirmative consent. In the essay’s wandering, searching form, Febos creates a whirlpool of space to explore the ripple effects of sexual harm, away from patriarchy’s surveillance, judgment, and worn-out tropes. She also comes to a better understanding of what healing looks and feels like."
As the author says. "When I think about healing in the abstract, I imagine a closing-up, or a lifting-up. In my fantasies, healing comes like a plane to pull me out of water. Real healing is the opposite of that. It is an opening. It is dropping down into the lost parts of yourself to reclaim them. It is slow, and there is no shortcut. Sometimes what I mean by healing is changing. A lasting, conscientious change in the self is similar to one in society; it requires consistent tending. It is sometimes painful and often tedious. We must choose it over and over."
May 24, 2025
If you are a woman, you will feel stripped bare and seen.
If you are a man, read this to understand some aspects of growing up as a girl.
PROLOGUE: SCARIFICATION
In the locker room, you perfect the art of changing your clothes under your clothes. Your body is a secret you keep, a white rabbit, and you the magician who disappears it.
KETTLE HOLES
This touches on Melissa’s work in the sex industry and as a dominatrix.
It pairs this with her experience in middle school as her body changes and thus her value.
The true telling of our stories often requires the annihilation of other stories, the ones we build and carry through our lives because it is easier to preserve some mysteries. We don’t need the truth to survive, and sometimes our survival depends on its denial.
THE MIRROR TEST
This is a fascinating analysis of the linguistic trajectory of the word ‘slut’. Slut-shaming can define a person and forces a girl to be identified by the gaze of others.
It also lightly touches on the intersection of sexism and racism.
Have you seen a suit of armor? There are so many pieces. Here is where a strange man named me. Here is where the girls stared. Here is the school report card. The plates clink and move together like one. The self underneath is invisible to others. We are completely alone inside ourselves.
WILD AMERICA
This looks at why and how females compete to be the weakest and smallest and most infantile.
Though I felt gigantic, I wasn’t. It was not the first time I mistook the feeling for the object, and not the last. This is what happens when you give your body away, or when it gets taken from you.
INTRUSIONS
How scary is the normal need of women to keep a constant vigilance outdoors rendering domestic spaces holy in their privacy?
This covers the romanticism of stalking and peeping Toms.
The pathology of victimhood would also claim that self-blaming and shame were my very ordinary attempt to explain what had happened to me, to assert control over it by assuming responsibility.
Better yet, make us seductresses, inverting men’s role even more extremely: they are our victims!
THESMOPHORIA
This is an intimate story of parents, specifically the relationship between mother and daughter using the myth of Persephone.
THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF
I didn’t even know Cuddle Parties was a thing but this essay deals with touch deprivation and patriarchy.
It really made me rethink interactions and indoctrinated mindsets.
“Patriarchy colonizes our brains like a virus,” she said. It was an apt comparison. Like a virus, patriarchy harms the systems that it infects and relies on replication to survive. It flourishes in those who are not aware of its presence, and sometimes even in those actively working to expel it.
LES CALANQUES
Recovery from addiction and spending time in France.
When I go back, I can see all the marks that girl made so long ago.
Overall, a very enlightening collection which doesn’t shy away from hard and heavy topics. It is also very sex positive.
Bookstagram
Tiktok
If you are a man, read this to understand some aspects of growing up as a girl.
PROLOGUE: SCARIFICATION
In the locker room, you perfect the art of changing your clothes under your clothes. Your body is a secret you keep, a white rabbit, and you the magician who disappears it.
KETTLE HOLES
This touches on Melissa’s work in the sex industry and as a dominatrix.
It pairs this with her experience in middle school as her body changes and thus her value.
The true telling of our stories often requires the annihilation of other stories, the ones we build and carry through our lives because it is easier to preserve some mysteries. We don’t need the truth to survive, and sometimes our survival depends on its denial.
THE MIRROR TEST
This is a fascinating analysis of the linguistic trajectory of the word ‘slut’. Slut-shaming can define a person and forces a girl to be identified by the gaze of others.
It also lightly touches on the intersection of sexism and racism.
Have you seen a suit of armor? There are so many pieces. Here is where a strange man named me. Here is where the girls stared. Here is the school report card. The plates clink and move together like one. The self underneath is invisible to others. We are completely alone inside ourselves.
WILD AMERICA
This looks at why and how females compete to be the weakest and smallest and most infantile.
Though I felt gigantic, I wasn’t. It was not the first time I mistook the feeling for the object, and not the last. This is what happens when you give your body away, or when it gets taken from you.
INTRUSIONS
How scary is the normal need of women to keep a constant vigilance outdoors rendering domestic spaces holy in their privacy?
This covers the romanticism of stalking and peeping Toms.
The pathology of victimhood would also claim that self-blaming and shame were my very ordinary attempt to explain what had happened to me, to assert control over it by assuming responsibility.
Better yet, make us seductresses, inverting men’s role even more extremely: they are our victims!
THESMOPHORIA
This is an intimate story of parents, specifically the relationship between mother and daughter using the myth of Persephone.
THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF
I didn’t even know Cuddle Parties was a thing but this essay deals with touch deprivation and patriarchy.
It really made me rethink interactions and indoctrinated mindsets.
“Patriarchy colonizes our brains like a virus,” she said. It was an apt comparison. Like a virus, patriarchy harms the systems that it infects and relies on replication to survive. It flourishes in those who are not aware of its presence, and sometimes even in those actively working to expel it.
LES CALANQUES
Recovery from addiction and spending time in France.
When I go back, I can see all the marks that girl made so long ago.
Overall, a very enlightening collection which doesn’t shy away from hard and heavy topics. It is also very sex positive.
Bookstagram
Tiktok
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