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Book Review of Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls

Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
laceylosh avatar reviewed on + 53 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


This book has been around since the mid 1990s, and I finally took the time to read and enjoy it.
I wish I'd picked it up sooner, but most of the themes and issues discussed in the book are just as relevant today and when the text was written.

Mary Pipher has a writing style that lets you in on her perspective and personal experiences, while educating you and making the reader more conscious of the world that surrounds them. Personal anecdotes are sprinkled among the interviews and descriptions of adolescent girls and their parents that Mary met and treated while writing this book.

It is a sad fact that so many young girls entering adolescence loose their androgynous interests and distinct personal traits in favor of becoming a more marginalized version of themselves based on what they feel society expects of them.

A friend recently suggested that we need a sister publication of "Reviving Ophelia" written with adolescent males in mind, as surely they struggle with gender roles and expectations upon entering adolescence as people of all genders do.