A review by cgreens
What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold

2.0

Eh, this reads more like a series of young adult magazine articles than a novel. Like even the very positive reviews mention, Nina "explains" a lot of important things, but her explanations are more like essays, going through clinical step-by-steps, basically like rewriting a Wikipedia article on a topic "in your own words" for a school assignment. Both this and the book I read right before, I Stop Somewhere, center on the topic of what it means to be a girl and even both mention and ruminate on the "sugar and spice" nursery rhyme. For me that book springs to life and stays with me much more than this one. Nina comes off as a very obvious empty vessel for the topics the author wanted to write about in clinical detail. I agree with the review that says this is a great book for younger girls who want to feel like they're reading about topics they're not supposed to, so maybe this is true Young Adult Fiction and not at all enjoyable for adults reading YA.