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

5.0

This book… wow. It’s definitely for mature readers as there are description of a lot of stuff, but the message is so powerful. I felt 16. I felt Nina’s all consuming feelings of measuring her worth by the affections of her boyfriend and how toxic and unsettling those feelings were, yet so realistic. Arnold wrote a story that captures how as women we are told to sacrifice, to be small, to take punishment in so many forms, from the gaping wounds to the smallest cuts, and how we turn on each other (looking at Nina’s horrible mother right here but also Nina herself). There’s a whole symbolic parallel plot where Nina recounts a trip to Rome with her mother and the martyred Catholic saints she sees in famous artworks that have haunted her and now she starts to see herself in them. Y’all, this book was one of those that’ll sit with me. I can’t believe I didn’t read it sooner. It was pretty short too. Again, it’s mature, and not for every reader.