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f18's review against another edition
nothing about the book, just there is an in detail first pap smear exam depicted and my own was traumatizing enough that I was getting increasingly anxious
hollybreen2006's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
kwbat12's review against another edition
4.0
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it did put girlhood in a light that I appreciated, with the protagonist being real and writing real things, with her concerns being some that have crossed my own mind. On the other hand, it is so unusually put together, with the stories of blood and gore amid the main story line. But still I think about it, still it comes into my head. I teared up when reading, I couldn't put it down, I read the author's note. I think I liked this book, but I'm not entirely sure.
hannah_the_bookworm's review against another edition
2.0
Didn't really enjoy the book, but the authors note at the end made an extra star.
lilliangretsinger's review against another edition
3.0
probably a 3.5.
This book was strange, heartbreaking, brutally honest, depressing and very well written. I think this is an important book to have in YA collections. It doesn't sugar coat anything and deals honestly with life, choices and consequences. Some of the subjects and scenes are hard to read but its important those scenes are written.
Not for everyone.
This book was strange, heartbreaking, brutally honest, depressing and very well written. I think this is an important book to have in YA collections. It doesn't sugar coat anything and deals honestly with life, choices and consequences. Some of the subjects and scenes are hard to read but its important those scenes are written.
Not for everyone.
pollyroth's review against another edition
I didn’t enjoy a single second of this book. But I do appreciate the message and think What Girls Are Made Of portrays it extremely well. It's a book that I would never recommend to any of my friends, but I still think every woman would benefit from reading it.
** Side note: if you do read this, read the authors note.
** Side note: if you do read this, read the authors note.
brynners89's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
kyleg99's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
naridhi's review against another edition
5.0
As long as there have been women my mother told me... There have been ways to punish them for being women.
The stories of the martyrs—the awful ways women died—I read these over and over, hearing them in my mother’s voice, seeing in my brain so clearly the men who did the torturing and the killing, the men who told their stories, and the men who turned them into art, carving their flesh into marble, painting the rivers of their blood.
I saw images of their bones, preserved in wax and set on altars, transformed from women into relics.
I recited their names in my head, the virgin martyrs, at night with the lights out
All virgins, all martyrs, all saints.
All tortured. All ruined. All dead.
When i was fourteen my mother told me there was no such thing as unconditional love
"Love for a woman " She said "is always conditioned on her beauty and sex"
I thought about the virgin martyr saints. I thought about the men who had loved them,who killed them.
I thought about my mother and my father, and about my father and his first wife Judy. Her words were a warning, a gift, a benediction.
And I nodded. I believed her.
“There’s no unconditional love between people,” Ruth says. “That kind of love flows one way, like a dog to its master.
“When someone loves unconditionally, they’re saying, “I am your dog. You are my god. That’s who unconditional love is for—dogs and their masters, fools and their gods.”
I turn to go and look back to see the girl slipping the box of tampons furtively into her bag as though she's stealing it, even though i saw her pay for it already
Her voice was brusque, like she was angry
She said" people don't change, Nina. Remember that.
What if they stood up, the Dissected Graces from their beds, the relics from their altars, the wishbone dolls from their boxes? What if they rose and walked, a horde of beautiful zombies? What if they went together to Saint Teresa, shook her gently to wake her from her dream, and helped her down from the pedestal onto which she had been placed?
What if they decided not to be beautiful dogs?
What are they then, this horde, these women, if they are not the fawning lovers of their god? Who are they, free of the conditions they have accepted like layers of chains?
Wake now, beauties. Rise and look around. Shake off the chains. Give up the ghost of love.
“But what are they?” I asked again.
“They’re the Dissected Graces.”
I had no idea what that meant, but it made perfect sense.
“They’re anatomical models, of sorts,” Mom said. “They were sculpted by Clemente Susini. The idea was that medical students could study these instead of corpses. They wouldn’t rot, they didn’t stink, and, of course, they were beautiful.they look almost alive. The color of their skin. Their expressions.”
“Their coffins look like beds,” I said, “the way their heads are on pillows.”
“Yes,” Mom said. “Look at the way they’re posed. Everything is purposeful, Nina. There are no accidents.”
I saw their open hands, their gently curved fingers. I saw their soft thighs, the hair curled between them.
“If they were just for learning about the body, they wouldn’t need long hair and jewelry,” I said.
“Right,” Mom answered. She sounded pleased, like I was a dog who had performed its trick just right. “But here we have the intersection of love and death again. Of beauty”—she gestured to the figure’s sweet face—“and gore.” Her hand pointed down to the flayed-open chest, the erupting intestines.
“Eros and Thanatos,” I murmured.
Description doesn't do any justice to the story
Which is much more than a teenage girl going through heart break
Its about getting to know your own body
About patriarchy, about the power dynamics in the society, the difference between the genders
The hypocrisy of it all.
It is about coming to teams with harsh realities
Its about how to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute ever fluctuating social relevance and likability
This book is criminally underrated.
ellieafterall's review against another edition
3.0
Consider-what are you made of? Also, remember - you don't owe anyone a slice of your soul. Not your parents. Not your friends. Not your teachers or your lovers or your enemies. And you don't have to listen to anyone who tells you what girls are made of. Decide on your own what your heart is. Protect it. Enjoy it. Share it, if you want. You get this one body and this one hundred years. Love it, love it, please, love it.
This book made me severely uncomfortable. And as someone who is okay with being uncomfortable, especially when it is in relation to the horrors young women have to go through, this was a disappointment. I had such high hopes for this book, which, in hindsight, was probably not a good idea. Putting expectations on a book that does everything in its power to break against expectations is almost redundant, so I am sorry for that. I just found it...messy. It wasn't the terrifying imagery that kept being brought up - I saw the point in the messy, traumatizing scenes of the women being tortured. I sat through all of the chicken vs egg metaphors, the pining for a boy, the alcoholic mother, and the pet shelter stories. I read it all.
There it is - my own beating heart. I listen, I try to understand what it means, what it wants.
The problem is that it was laid out in this mishap of events, and that was confusing. I didn't know if we were in the current timeline or the past several times throughout the book, and many scenes felt structured and didn't flow with the story at all. There is a scene where she stalks her ex-boyfriend for a whole chapter, and that is all. They just look at each other, and then she leaves. This is never brought up again. I don't even know. I have to confess that I prefer the author's note to almost everything written in here; her explanation of why she wrote this was the thing I was expecting when I read this book. I see many elements in this book that I could've liked - the girls supporting each other, the discussion of girls being whatever the hell they wanted to be, breaking free from an emotionally detached mother...but it didn't work well together. I didn't like the random Christian imagery scattered throughout the book. That was definitely the worst part.
"As long as there have been women," Mom told me, "there have been ways to punish them for being women."
Anyway, the problem wasn't that Nina was unlikeable or some parts were gross, but that as a whole, the storyline went in a bunch of different directions. It was like I was reading from a diary, but out of order, and I could never keep track of what had already happened, or what was about to happen. I don't like that. I do appreciate Nina, though. I enjoyed her voice. She was almost so open with her thoughts that it felt like she was confessing them to me, in real life. Every single thought, even the horribly judgemental ones, that everyone thinks. I appreciated that. I just wish her story was told more coherently, without mentioning Jesus every 50 pages. Still a good book, though!
This book made me severely uncomfortable. And as someone who is okay with being uncomfortable, especially when it is in relation to the horrors young women have to go through, this was a disappointment. I had such high hopes for this book, which, in hindsight, was probably not a good idea. Putting expectations on a book that does everything in its power to break against expectations is almost redundant, so I am sorry for that. I just found it...messy. It wasn't the terrifying imagery that kept being brought up - I saw the point in the messy, traumatizing scenes of the women being tortured. I sat through all of the chicken vs egg metaphors, the pining for a boy, the alcoholic mother, and the pet shelter stories. I read it all.
There it is - my own beating heart. I listen, I try to understand what it means, what it wants.
The problem is that it was laid out in this mishap of events, and that was confusing. I didn't know if we were in the current timeline or the past several times throughout the book, and many scenes felt structured and didn't flow with the story at all. There is a scene where she stalks her ex-boyfriend for a whole chapter, and that is all. They just look at each other, and then she leaves. This is never brought up again. I don't even know. I have to confess that I prefer the author's note to almost everything written in here; her explanation of why she wrote this was the thing I was expecting when I read this book. I see many elements in this book that I could've liked - the girls supporting each other, the discussion of girls being whatever the hell they wanted to be, breaking free from an emotionally detached mother...but it didn't work well together. I didn't like the random Christian imagery scattered throughout the book. That was definitely the worst part.
"As long as there have been women," Mom told me, "there have been ways to punish them for being women."
Anyway, the problem wasn't that Nina was unlikeable or some parts were gross, but that as a whole, the storyline went in a bunch of different directions. It was like I was reading from a diary, but out of order, and I could never keep track of what had already happened, or what was about to happen. I don't like that. I do appreciate Nina, though. I enjoyed her voice. She was almost so open with her thoughts that it felt like she was confessing them to me, in real life. Every single thought, even the horribly judgemental ones, that everyone thinks. I appreciated that. I just wish her story was told more coherently, without mentioning Jesus every 50 pages. Still a good book, though!