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A review by moonaby
What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold
DNF’d at 48%.
I wanted to like this book, I really did, but the messages about girlhood that the author was trying to convey felt too bleak and lacked nuance, like she was spelling out her viewpoint on the female experience to the audience. And despite how I’m also a teenage girl of the same age as Nina, I couldn’t connect with her because she had zero depth as a character.
I have no problems with “unlikeable” characters so long as they’re interesting, but Nina was not. She didn’t have a single redeeming quality about her and her flaws weren’t explored enough for me to empathize with them. Perhaps they are in the second half of the book, but from the first half that I’ve read, she’s not a compelling character and neither are any of the other characters.
The biggest problem I think this book suffers from is the author’s attempts to write universal truths about the female experience instead of focusing on the intricacies of Nina’s experiences with girlhood. That should’ve been left to subtext. Moreover, I didn’t care for Nina’s obsession with Seth or her shitty relationship with him.
Being a girl isn’t always fun or easy, but there’s a beauty to it as well, and it rubs me the wrong way that the author displays this in such a colourless manner. This story is missing the highs and lows of growing up and instead settles for consistent emptiness.
I wanted to like this book, I really did, but the messages about girlhood that the author was trying to convey felt too bleak and lacked nuance, like she was spelling out her viewpoint on the female experience to the audience. And despite how I’m also a teenage girl of the same age as Nina, I couldn’t connect with her because she had zero depth as a character.
I have no problems with “unlikeable” characters so long as they’re interesting, but Nina was not. She didn’t have a single redeeming quality about her and her flaws weren’t explored enough for me to empathize with them. Perhaps they are in the second half of the book, but from the first half that I’ve read, she’s not a compelling character and neither are any of the other characters.
The biggest problem I think this book suffers from is the author’s attempts to write universal truths about the female experience instead of focusing on the intricacies of Nina’s experiences with girlhood. That should’ve been left to subtext. Moreover, I didn’t care for Nina’s obsession with Seth or her shitty relationship with him.
Being a girl isn’t always fun or easy, but there’s a beauty to it as well, and it rubs me the wrong way that the author displays this in such a colourless manner. This story is missing the highs and lows of growing up and instead settles for consistent emptiness.