some people will absolutely abhor this book, and others will finish it with a whole new attitude. either way, it will provoke you and make you think about the way society handles women who transgress normal social boundaries. perhaps your own reaction to this book also says something about the way society views dangerous women. either way, it will make you listen to hole again, which i personally think is a great thing.

I'm not sure why anyone would read this book and attempt to get anything out of it other than a 415 page Blog from an educated woman, who wrote in the decade that brought us over-sensitive, granola-eating, needy, tree-hugging, Iron John men. Halfway through BITCH, it occurred to me that the book wasn't so much a collection of writings that praised difficult women as it was a double-entendre on the title: The book is a bitching session, a style that has become de rigueur among today's dime-a-dozen online blogs from nobodies in particular. I guess that's why the publisher wastes no time in announcing that Wurtzel is a Harvard graduate on the back cover, and the author herself, sheds her clothes and strikes a Maxim magazine pose on the front, two safety measures just to distinguish her rant from the ones you hear from homeless people out on the streets (she makes an observation that we, as a society, are intrigued by the madness of beautiful people, but find the same affliction in homeless people appalling and disgusting). After all, Wurtzel continues to harp on the importance of beauty and youth in our society, drawing one example after another from Hollywood movies, Vanity Fair interviews, Vogue magazine, tabloid gossip, Rock and Roll songs, Dylan and Springsteen, the Bible and the Torah.

A scene from the movie WOLF is quoted, where Nicholson says to Pfieffer: "The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting: you're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn. I know: you want someone to look past all that, at the real person underneath. But the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautiful." (pg 163). I thought this was telling in a way that explained why the cover of the book had to be presented in its titillating way. Wurtzel doesn't condemn using looks to get what you want in life. Here she is on page 114: "Knowing she can get her way with her wiles - that, for instance, the mechanic down the block will repair the dents in her new convertible for free and Dad will never have to know that half the time she drives like she's asleep at the wheel. she will use flirtatiousness, her feigned naïve helplessness and whatever other effects she has learned from the movies, to get what she wants. Nothing wrong with this. Nothing at all. If you can get through life batting your lashes, it beats the hell out of carrying your own bags."

Certainly, it made it difficult for me to distinguish whether the anxiety-stricken last pages of vulnerable sentiments were authentic or just an act. It gives the phrase: "Cry Wolf" a unique angle.

"Shameless honesty," then, in the tradition of tell-all blogs, is the order of the day, as alternate moments of brilliance and dazzling insight mingle with reappearing passages that begrudging addresses those with youth and beauty- supermodels- in particular. (While Betty Friedan is uncharitably described as "damn froglike" and "somewhere short of offensive" in appearance) This book struck me as an exorcism on the author's part to come to terms with being a single woman turning 30, and facing the impending menace of fading beauty in a culture that values youth and good looks. Many parts of this book read as Wurtzel's attempt to stop the clock, or at least, prepare the stage for her entry into being a middle-aged woman. I read it as a writer trying to convince herself that it isn't that frightening to lose one's looks and still be single.

This book is an autobiographical sketch, as any work of art in any medium (including book reviews on amazon.com) reveals more about the writer than it does her subjects. The first insightful passage comes along on page 70: "One of the few benefits of being a child of divorce, particularly a contentious one, is that you learn early to construct complex narratives to explain your parents' behavior: while each of them can afford to demonize the other, as a kid who loves both Mommy and Daddy, you must ratify a whole new set of laws in your own mind, must learn to assemble a view of the situation where neither is wrong, both in their way are right." If you can accept this, then you will be okay with readings of the lives of girls-done-wrong, such as Delilah, Amy Fisher, Sylvia Plath, Nicole Simpson Brown, Anne Sexton, Edie Sedgwick, Courtney Love, Gloria Steinham, Hilary Rodham Clinton and Princess Di.

There are contradictions that abound throughout the book, but I have no problems with it. The life of any written work involves elapsed time. For a writer to stay consistent from page 1 to 414 would defeat the purpose of penning an honest piece of work. The process of writing, especially when editing appears loosely enforced, is an act of discovery. Why do we, in our infinite arrogance as consumers, chose to believe that everything was created for our sole pleasure? Some may argue that the art of self-editing is hiding the ugly parts while displaying the gems. But then, it would no longer qualify as a work worthy of the title BITCH. It is true that honesty is consolation for being the least a person could have done these days, but going for a ride inside the mind that brought you Prozac Nation is all about the journey.

Wurtzel shines on sections inspecting Sex and Violence in the tightrope act between men and women; our romanticizing of madness among beautiful people; the phoniness of "feel-good" culture. She sounded less charitable and petty when dishing out repartees to fat married people (for inquiring about her single status), observing that the Brown family consisted of four daughters with breast implants and not one college degree, and Joel Steinberg's victimization of Hedda Nussbaum ("we want to beat her up too, we can't blame anyone for what they might have done to a woman who allowed this to be done to her.")

Frankly, I don't care if a writer is not politically correct, after all, Wurtzel observes that "posing nude is (not) inconsistent with being a serious scholar or a credible manager or a dynamic leader ." Therefore, if someone makes some harsh remarks in the course of a bitching session, it doesn't necessarily mean the other valid points made in the book are not sound. Unfortunately, many readers will ultimately demand that consistency.

I purchased this read because it mentioned or made reference to real life interesting women. I believed the book would offer some factual information about the lives of these complex women that perhaps was unknown to the reader. Information that would yield insight as to why the media has concluded or labeled, fairly or unfairly, that these particular women are "Bitches". After reading the book in its entirety, I came to the conclusion that the author used these names to sell a book about "nothing" in order to make money. The book is not, and has nothing to do with, any of the women mentioned or referenced in it.

All I have to say is wow, it isn't very hard to follow, but it can become confusing. Except you can understand what she is trying to say without her saying it. I would recommend this book for thoes who who like fast paced books because this book has that kind of rambling speed.

This book is an astounding slap in the face to traditional thinking, media feedback, and definitely one to stock up on to hand out as gifts to your evolving friends. "Used to Love her but had to Kill her," the great chapter mainly about Nicole Brown Simpson. A great starting point in the book. Elizabeth writes she knew OJ killed Nicole because she had this QUALITY, this rare and fine beauty that would drive a person to think if they couldn't have this, or if they lost this, no one else would be seen replacing them. I wonder what Wurtzel would say about Amber Frey et. al. From there I finish the book, I buy my friend's copies, I buy Radical Sanity, Prozac Nation, More, Now Again. I start reading Radical, it's so right on target, I have to lend it to a friend before I finish. I start More Now again, it's a gift. But I digress. This is the heart of her writing, this book, I think. I thought she was manic reading it, then More Now tells she was tuned way up. Made no difference to me. Her thinking, even manic and circuitous makes sense! Is there hope for us all?

Ms. Wurtzel has once again written a very formidable book. Oh yes, she still rambles but her ramblings are full of purpose and signify a lot. When I first picked up this book, I thought I'd be reading about tough women who were artists, CEOs or just plain bad-azzes. Nothing like that. The main theme running throughout the book is that a woman needs to be a bitch so as not to be abused by the world - and men are the central characters who are abusive in her world. She gives lots of examples of women who were not bitches or deluded bitches. She mentions Amy Fischer, Courtney Love, spends a good number of pages on Nicole Simpson and the pas a deux of abusive relationships. The pas a deux is the balancing act between a woman and her abuser. She takes one step forward he hits her; she leaves; he begs her to come back, she does and the play is re-enacted over and over again. Such was the life of Nicole Simpson, who, although beautiful and rich, re-enacted this drama over and over with O.J. Simpson.

She also mentions Amy Fischer a good number of times and has a lot of sympathy for her. She describes Fischer as all adolescent hormones choosing a funky looking man with whom to have an affair. She rants about the fact that Joey Boutaffuco earned less prison time than Fischer. Well . . .Fischer did shoot his wife in the face, although it was likely prodded on by the husband.

Wurtzel is also honestly brutal with herself. She acknowledges her addictions, her keeping vigil hoping a guy would call, crying herself to sleep after break ups. She wants the wedding and all that it entails BUT she likes being alone. She actually likes going to a restaurant or to the movies by herself. She enjoys exploring all of New York on her own.

Wurtzel also mentions Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath a lot. She mentions Sexton in light of her poetry but Plath's main feature seems to have been her suicide, supposedly over an affair in which her husband engaged.

She mentions Hillary Clinton and believes that the reason why she was hated so much was because she essentially became a co-president, a position which was not sanctioned by the public or created by congress. She was not earning her own keep, so to say. Her position was that similar to Ivana Trump's. Ivana ran all of Trump's casinos but, because she was not paid, she was not taken seriously by her husband (or the public) for all the work she did. Hillary, in people's mind, was trying to re-organize health care because of the largesse of her husband. Wurtzel questions whether Hillary should have had a "real" job that paid her commensurate with her abilities.

I really recommend this book. This is the second of her books that I've read and I'm looking forward to digging more out from the library. She writes with such candor and every word means something. She rambles a bit but even her ramblings are rife with good observations

This book was surprisingly scholarly book with lots of historical references, written by Harvard graduate (friend of Mira Sorvino).

I had many new realizations of the world and this book has changed me profoundly.

I started reading this book soon after I had finished Susan Faludi's "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women". I was looking forward to reading Wurtzel's book as a representative woman of'90s post-backlash era where women are allowed to be independent and make their own choices AND say what they want about it.

Unfortunately, Wurtzel has once again set us back, again to the '80s, where women are allowed to be independent as long as they suffer the consequences of failed love relationships, success based only on their looks, and empty rebellion for the sake of rebellion.

Wurtzel, using a handful of notororious examples including herself, argues that there is something inherent about women that makes them self-destructive, usually in the name of a man.

Furthermore, Wurtzel seems to lack adequate knowledge about the psychology of women, using Carol Gilligan, a little respected '70s "feminist" psychologist, as her only scholarly-based evidence on the problems faced by adolescent girls. Instead of discussing empirically-based findings on the social problems that still plague women today, she resorts to personality and psychodynamic based explanations about why there are so many women who are screwed up.

It seems that she's been to too many unhelpful therapy sessions and has now used herself as a basis of generalizing to an entire generation of women...unfair and just as bad as prevailing traditional stereotypes about good, little women.

And what a waste it is. I had the feeling I was on crystal meth during this painfully meandering and meaningless read. I was on the mark as it turned out from her next disaster. I don't hold much truck with an author who keeps writing "I mean" and other phatic communication devices designed for verbal communication. The pen is truly mightier than the sword - a sword can't bore you to death.

I gave this book two stars for its readability; however, its engaging style only made me more annoyed that the book suffered from such an extreme lack of focus. Elizabeth Wurtzel (as she constantly reminds us in every book she's ever written) is attractive, connected, and well-educated. It is clear from even the most unfocused ramblings in "Bitch" that she is also intelligent, insightful, and erudite. It is also clear that the thing she values most about herself is her good looks, which appears to be what she spends most of her life thinking about and obsessing over, like she's in a perpetual state of smugness at having won the genetic lottery. I always get the impression when I read Wurtzel that she is a) totally shallow and self-obsessed, and b) keenly aware that shallowness, obsession with one's own beauty, and openly judging others by their looks isn't "cool", so she has to spend hundreds of pages justifying all the energy she spends thinking about nothing more than herself and how much prettier she is than average girls. The result: "Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women". In the end, this book is nothing more than Wurtzel's attempt to intellectually justify her painfully obvious feelings of superiority over women who are not as attractive as her. As a graduate student that men also flirt with alot, I can honestly say that I find Wurtzel's self-worship both sad and immature. I also can't figure out why she still tries to pull off the whole "I do drugs to ease my self-hatred at being so beautiful and brilliant and alienated" routine - yawn, Ms. Wurtzel, your pose is showing. The bottom line: no matter how many great books she's read herself, she has yet to write one. If she can get over herself and off the speed, maybe someday she will, and I look forward to reading it. Until then, she should stick to concert reviews for Rolling Stone.

I tried to read this book twice and couldn't finish it. It is very bad, and the sentences are long and confusing, and Elizabeth Wurtzel has no direction in the book. Try 'Prozac Nation', but even that is not much better.

More more more- there could be more versions of this theme. I loved the book. It is a fun fast read and I learned about alot of women I wouldn't normally see in the light they are portrayed. Good book for a cross country flight. Enjoy!

I love feminist literature. This book, however, was boring, pretentious, poorly researched and poorly thought out. There is a significant lack of critical thinking happenning in this book-most of the book is based on assumptions which the author provides virtually no evidence for and which, upon an objective review of the evidence, are shaky at best. Frankly, the writers who submit their articles to the National Enquirer show more critical thinking skill than the author does in this book! If you are looking for feminist literature that makes you think, rather than irritating you with its poorly supported ideological rant, then this is not the book for you. Many of the arguments advanced by the author have been done much better by others.

In her second book, Elizabeth Wurtzel examines the role and plight of the bad girl through Western history. Feminism hasn't suceded, Miss Wurtzel argues, as long as women have to behave in order to get men.
Miss Wurtzel celebrates the women, for whatever reason, who chose not to behave, to admit to having desires and feel no guilt about fulfilling them.
I have the paperback edition, though I read hardback edition first. I don't understand what all the fuss about her appearing topless on the cover. I liked it. She's very beautiful and talented.

This is a very entertaining and provocative book that proves that Wurtzel does indeed have a brain. A lot of research clearly went into compiling it, and I think she's done a pretty good job of picking women throughout history who have indeed been "difficult" for one reason or another. Her interpretations of the information, rather than the information itself, is sometimes kind of questionable, but I suppose that's artistic license in a book like this. Like another reviewer stated, this book does ramble on a bit, but then again I suppose that Wurtzel's style and she's entitled to it. Overall, a very enjoyable and somewhat thought provoking read that will especially be enjoyed by Wurtzel fans. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

I loved Prozac Nation and was more than willing to forgive a first author her foibles - lack of coherence and cohesiveness. But in this, a long and boring rant without focus, there is simply no excuse. It reminded me of those endless nights helping an otherwise bright woman friend come down off coke or speed. There are too many other well-written books out there. Spare yourself.

he may've penned something like this.
Her endless pop cultural references got boring but it was easy to skim them over and come back in on yarns I was more interested in. She makes some choice poetic descriptions of her subjects. My favorite was about Amy Fisher being "As vulnerable as Austro-Hungary on the eve of WWI, a weak and unassertive territory with boundaries and ideologies up for grabs." I'll never again be able to think of said empire the same! The only thing better would be a historian comparing Austro-Hungary to Amy Fisher. Also, the closing of the Fisher essay is very very moving, very heavy, deep and poetic. The more I combed thru these essays the more I enjoyed them, there was fun and insights in the rambling and yet and yet I wish she'd tightened the screws and wielded the axe and turned this into the classic it hints at but never quite achieves.

Wurtzel is an extraordinarily gifted writer but has a chronic inability to form coherent arguments. She makes some great points but drops them in pursuit of other topics, leaving the reader with little idea of what, if anything, she means to really say. Wurtzel's stellar introduction melts into a combination of erudite arguments and self-absorbed mellodrama with enough decent filler in between to keep one interested. A good read, but far from perfect.

Having read Wurtzel's witty and insightful memoir, Prozac Nation, I looked forward to reading another one of her books. I thought I'd get a kick out of reading a book about America's most notorious women, but it lacks Wurtzel's sardonic humor and clever insights that made the aforementioned memoir such a delightful read. This book is a disappointment, to say the least. I expected more from this talented writer.

In Elizabeth Wurtzel's second book, she takes on the ambitious project of studying and, in many cases, defending, the manipulative and sometimes "difficult" behavior of women, starting in biblical times with Delilah, all the way to Hillary Clinton. Although this book is very flawed, and certainly is not for everyone, you really have to admire what the author was attempting to do.

After an introduction which, if you get beneath all the anecdotes, poses the question, 'what is it about women which makes them either good or bad, sexy or studious, wives or mistresses?' Wurtzel gives us five essays, each tackling various aspects of the female psyche. Each one is titled respectively: "He Puts Her On a Pedestal And She Goes Down On IT", "Hey Little Girl, Is Your Daddy Home?", "There She Goes Again", "The Blonde In The Bleachers," and "Used To Love Her But Had To Kill Her". Then, there is an epilogue, cleverly entitled, "Did I Shave My Legs For This?", which shows the difficulty that single women face, and the burdens which society simply expects women to carry in relationships.

The first essay tackles the mystery of female seductiveness and how men are always wont to blame a woman for their downfall, even when it is their own guilelessness which causes them to fall for this woman in the first place. Such is the case in the tale of "Samson and Delilah", where the Bible clearly shows Delilah to be a woman of ill-repute, who ruined Samson. Next, she tackles the dilemmas of adolescent emotions, using the story of Amy Fisher, and how her affair with an older man led to her tragically attempting to kill his wife, who, to this day, denies that her husband had any involvement with Ms. Fisher. Third, she tackles the allure of female madness using twin icons, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, as her examples of brilliant madwomen, whose difficult depressive behavior is often overlooked to glorify their achievements. After this, comes an essay on people's reaction to females in positions of pseudo-power, with the role model of Hillary Clinton, who claims to be a strong, independent woman, yet somehow has submitted to her husband's adultery all these years. Lastly, there is an analysis of spousal abuse, using Nicole Brown Simpson and O.J.'s marriage as an example of the dynamics in this vicious "love-hate-stay-leave" cycle.

The writing in this is rather disorganized and often quite uneven. However, if you realize that Elizabeth Wurtzel's intentions were really to shake up feminism and give it some movement, she has certainly succeeded. There is a lot to like about this book in that Wurtzel's consistent references to pop-culture will be familiar to all and easy to access. It really keeps your interest throughout what is virtually a crash-course in women's history and psychology. One of the more striking problems with this book is that Elizabeth Wurtzel can seem so critical and biting towards every public figure, and it can get irritating. However, this does alleviate itself towards the end, and she does an excellent job in the last essay, "Used To Love Her, But Had To Kill Her"--I was totally impressed.

No matter what she says, whether you agree with her or disagree, Elizabeth Wurtzel always makes you think. I recommend this book as a unique and educational perspective on feminism in its less-explored outlets.

The second book by the incredibly talented and intriguing Elizabeth Wurtzel is about the most difficult women of the past and present, and how they were treated.

Wurtzel compares women like Amy Fisher, Nicole Brown Simpson, Delilah, Mariel Hemmingway, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and more. She's researched the subject to a great extent and has included all of her sources in an extremely large works cited section.

Wurtzel's book defines the mistreatment of women who've freely displayed their sexuality; girls who've been turned into sex objects by grown men; the suicidality of famous people; political wives, girlfriends, and lovers; the O.J. Simpson murder trial over his dead ex-wife Nicole; and even Lizzie's own life.

She has her own artistic way of spreading the truth about these wonderful women. This truth needs to be learned by all people, but especially women.

This is an amazing book and I would definitely recommend it to almost anyone else. Wurtzel has definitely mastered this study of women. She is definitely a genious when it comes to writing.

Elizabeth Wurtzel is a beautiful, thirty-something journalist from a privileged background (including a B.A. from Harvard in 1986). She has been a music critic for The New Yorker and New York Magazine, and has a regular column in the London Guardian. She is also author of Prozac Nation, an autobiographical narrative of how Prozac helped her out of a downward spiral into depression.

In her long, rambling introduction, Wurtzel lays out her basic premise, to wit, that the beautiful "bitch" is a vital feminine role model, an essential expression of feminist rage. Though she admits that extreme examples of the Beautiful Bitch (BB) invariably end up as tragic "sex kittens in the slammer," or dead, she believes that ideal BB's are "fabulous women of great mischief," who are excitingly, wickedly dangerous, due to using their beauty shamelessly to enslave men. As such, Delilah from the Bible is Wurtzel's primary BB archetype and rates one of the five sections of the book. The other four sections discuss Amy Fisher, Courtney Love, Hillary Clinton and Nicole Brown Simpson.

If you enjoy the sharp, intellectual, stylized writing of New York journalists amped up to a speed-induced extreme, you may greatly enjoy this book for that feature alone. If, on the other hand (as in my case), you find smug, self-satisfied, flashily egocentric voices like Wurtzel's both irritating in their own right and counterproductively overwhelming of the subject matter at hand, Wurtzel's writerly style will not be a plus for you.

If, in addition, you don't demand much in terms of substance of opinion pieces, and "witty" cleverness alone is satisfactory for you, you may also enjoy this book on that count. However, if you do appreciate a bit of weight in these sorts of essays, you are out of luck here. (...), all I could ultimately locate as her "point" was the Madison Avenue cliché, "If you've got it, flaunt it." (...), since many autobiographical remarks scattered throughout the book indicate she clearly sees herself as the ultimate BB, a sort of tragic female Byron. Tragic because, though every BB has power, for a while, inevitably, if she isn't killed outright, age steals her beauty, her one source of power. And it is fear of this loss, perhaps, that drives Wurtzel to wonder, in passing, if someday, when she's through doing all the "things" she "has to do," she won't have to fall back on the good girl's dream, building a home and a family. (And, God help her future husband and kids if she does!)

Having said all that, I have to admit that there is one redeeming aspect of Bitch--the author's extensive bibliography. Though she may not have much to say worth listening to herself, I have to admit, Wurtzel's read a lot of interesting books.

I did not like:

*that the book did not follow any sort of train of thought. Even though it was broken up into five or six essays, she would go from one person to the next so quickly, you don't even know she was talking about a different person. I skipped most of the stuff on Delilah, the character showed up on occasion throughout 2-3 of the essays, and sometimes stayed for pages. I wasn't interested in it, and the author probably should have just written a whole essay on her. Apparently, this book was written on some kind of speed, which makes sense, but couldn't it have been cut down a little? Or, at least, molded into something readable? Maybe its supposed to fit with the running theme: "Bad girls: young, beautiful, and on drugs." Which leads me to the next thought...

*What is her obsession with beauty? It seems like every woman she mentions is somehow tragically beautiful.. and these are the women who are bi#$%#s, the "difficult" women... how she says: "I am still pretty. I still have time to work out my marital status." <---What is that about? As if the only people who are married are good looking? Since when is marriage about "looks" anyway? or she also says.."even worse, it seems inevitable that there will come a time when I won't look good, when men will stop flirting with me, when this freedom sh#$ will start to feel more like free-falling. Will I know? Will I become pathetic?" No, you will just have to win people over by personality for a change! I just don't understand the superficial attitude for someone who is supposed to be a feminist. I have known women who are not great beauties, but everywhere they go, men fall in love with them. Once again, love is not about outside beauty. Unless, she is worried that at 50, she won't be able to have lots of one night stands, and men falling at her feet. This is probably true.

*Her opinions didn't even follow anything concrete. It seemed that at one moment she believed wholeheartedly in something, and then turned around and said.. oh wait, i forgot about that. nevermind, i believe this instead. Unfortunately, i can't come up with an example, because I would have to plow through this monstrous book for it. At least, she broke it into paragraphs.

What I did like about the book:

* the way she uses examples of movies, books, stories, and songs in her essays. Most of the movies are familiar to me, Fatal Attraction, Foxfire... then she mentions others that maybe some people wouldn't know, but should watch.. like Welcome to the Dollhouse or if Lucy fell. Many books that I own, have references or what the author has as a bibliography... My favorite author SARK recommends books on every chapter, sometimes music or web pages. It's just like a chain where you are exposed to things you would never have been before you read this book. Unfortunately, in Wurtzel's bibliography, i think she fails to mention the movies.

* I liked the essay, "Used to love her but I had to kill her." This touches on a lot of things having do to with O.J., and his late ex-wife Nicole. I never really followed the trial, but I do agree with the author, that he did it. It's funny too, because she doesn't use the word "allegedly" anywhere in the chapter. It's written like: when he killed her.... or he probably killed her because. It's as if she believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that he committed the crime, and she is not going to believe otherwise no matter what you say...

*which leads into this: the honesty of the book gets me. I would be afraid to let go of myself too much into a book. She has very strong opinions. Not only that, but she talks about her life, how she feels about herself, what she has done. One of my favorite paragraphs is where she talks about how she is not married and why she is not.. the reason is because there are things she "needed to do." the start of this paragraph is... "I needed to spend a week in Florence by myself, to check into the Excelsior Hotel and eat breakfast and dinner in bed with a view of the Arno, watching soccer on Italian television and be amazingly bored, I needed to walk the streets of this most romantic and recherche of cities all alone..." I loved that. It goes on for about two pages but I didn't mind. You get a peek into her life and all of the adventures she has had. For me, I yearned for those experiences to be mine. I want to go back to Europe, this time all by myself, and see things I didn't get to see the first time because I was going to pubs and hanging out with friends.

To sum up, it is a whale of a book, but if you have the patience to go through it, you should. She is very intelligent and has a lot of insight on things that I had never thought to analyze. If it is confusing or boring, skip it. That's what I did. There are just little gems scattered throughout. You just have to look for them sometimes.

Icould babble on and on like Elizabeth Wurtzel did when she wrote this book, but instead i'll make it short. Wurtzel is a great writer and I enjoy her sarcasm and delightful bitchiness. I loved her first book, "Prozac Nation" and had higher expectations for this one. It was 414 pages of babble- too much for me. I wouldn't recommend it.

Wurtzel treats other people like poo, and calls it empowerment. It's okay, though, because as she reminds the reader ad nauseum, she's extremely well-connected and attended Harvard. Anyway she's good-looking, and the most consistent message in this otherwise self-contradictory mess is that "Beauty = Virtue."

Read between the lines and Wurtzel's idea of feminism is a hot chick who dresses like a prostitute, mistreats others, throws tantrums like a child and otherwise embodies the darkest misogynist fantasies of men. Even Wurtzel acknowledges that this attracts men at their worst, leading to loveless, mutually destructive relationships - but it makes you cool, tragic and popular!! Be warned that her advice isn't for everyone, however: Nicole Simpson rates higher on Wurtzel's "Flattering Projection of Myself" scale than Gertrude Stein or Eleanor Roosevelt, for instance, because she was inherently superior. I mean, duh! Nicole was *way* hotter than Stein!! I think we all agree that the ability to inspire a man to camouflage his lap topology with a strategically-placed briefcase is the sole measure of a woman's worth, right? File me under Feminism!

Wurtzel borrowed her book's title from an essay by Ron Rosenbaum. The cover photo was her publisher's idea, and she just went along with it. She uses the word "youthquaker" an average of four times per chapter. But perhaps the best summary of this book comes from an excerpt from her interview on National Public Radio shortly after publication:

Random Caller: Hello. I just want to say that I find it deeply offensive that your publisher and this radio network are presenting you as the voice of feminism, apparently on the merits of your appearance and connections. Your book is if anything anti-feminism, and the writing's so bad it reads as though it was written on speed.

Wurtzel: It was written on speed.

[uncomfortable silence]

I really did like this book. Wurtzel is a very witty author and she uses savvy commentary to draw the reader in. The only real problem with the novel that I found was that she used a lot of Biblical references (ex: Delilah) and while they are good examples, they become very repetitive. One chapter is solely based on Delilah alone and it took me forever to get through...

A good read, especially if you like Biblical references to modern day situations.

The title and book cover (and my copy has a image of the author much less fig-leafed than the one shown above) suggest that Wurtzel is looking for shock value to draw in readers. She does have some interesting and different insights on Amy Fisher and other women, asseen through the lens of her own troubled past. Wurtzel starts out with a funny, frenetic rant on women's treatment in even the most modern history, but has trouble sustaining the pace, and eventually grows repetitive, and a little self-centered for my taste.

Can sex-pots and feminists get along?

Elizabeth Wurtzell thinks so.

Wurtzell is an amazingly acute author, making each painfully sharp point by point without even stopping to take a breath. No dull stuff here. Wurtzell is brilliant, observant, and essentially witty. She has taken the schizophrenic topic of what it means to be a sexually attractive woman and has laid out for us the sociological implications.

While Wurtzell does indeed "Praise" these women, she also details lives ended in isolated tragedy, insatiable hunger, and unattainably beautiful disaster.

In this era of post-Packwood America, Wurtzell makes a case for flaunting sexuality and using whatever God himself was irresponsible enough to give you for your own needs.

All I can say is Wurtzell needs to go on more binges.

Us females are always told we are confusing, complex etc, etc. This book gave me an insight into our wild and winsome ways - the follow up book 'The Bitch Rules' has become my own personal bible in following my head and heart to find true happiness. This woman knows her stuff. Well done Elizabeth - you have helped me better than any therapist.

I guess this is the fad of the week. Another cool rant from a modern day social commentarian, one that only the juvenile mind could possibly appreciate. What a boring prattle from a spoilt brat of an "author". Shes obviously made a mess of her life, and is so self absorbed that she feels it is important enough to interest somebody. the only people who could gain from this drivel are other self pitying kindred spirits who want to damage their lives even more. Has humanity sunk so low?

Heres a piece of advice for the author and any would be readers: Take responsibility for your actions in life, for you bare the consequences.

So what if it's written in a stream of consciousness style, so what if it's self-indulgent. It's interesting, it's intelligent. Wurtzel takes a topic many young women find to be dull or uncool and breathes life into it. She's very aware of the world around her, she pulls illustrations from such various sources as Dante, Greek mythology and tabloid headlines. And it works. Wurtzel sees the big picture, how it all fits together. Going to Harvard doesn't automatically make her a spoiled brat. She's intelligent, she's knowledgeable - these are adjectives we don't like to attach to gen-xers. She has something important to say and she says it in her own stylish, witty, and yes, sometimes verbose way. So this isn't your average book of essays. So the writing isn't as terse as it could be. So what. It's creative. It's colorful. It's different. And it's damn fun to read. Give her a little credit, and lighten up a bit.

A couple of years ago I read Prozac by the same author and I was really interested in new work of Miss Wurtzel. The book really reads as a amphetamine rush, deeply felt, passionate on the subject but sometimes a little overlong. And the fact that Miss Wurtzel does understand the effect of humour next to a serious subject is only a pro. For a lady Miss Wurtzel really has cojones (and that's a compliment for you).

This is an interesting and provoking book (in more ways than one). Wurtzel's mind ranges across a variety of topics, from pop culture and pop villains (from Amy Fisher to Hillary Clinton) to Orthodox Judaism and spiritual values in the widest sense of the term. I especially liked her thoughts in the Fisher chapter (not so much about the girl herself, but what men and the culture make of relatively innocent/ignorant but nubile teenaged females), and on the role Nicole Brown Simpson and her family played in her ultimate fate. Unfortunately, the book often rambles (my eyes tended to start skimming paragraphs at times), and Wurtzel is prone to shooting off her mouth both in terms of snap judgments about vast sociological phenomena and in condemning celebrities for this or that lapse in taste or behavior. She's especially stupid in her statements about men -- not particular men, but all men -- which reminded me of Collette Dowling's _The Cinderella Complex_; both authors may have a lot of important things to say about how women think and feel, but they parrot many of the usual lies about men. At the same time, Wurtzel tends to want to brag about her own achievements and misbehavior -- not in any instructive detail, just breezy asides. There's a thoughtful, sensitive woman behind this book, and one gets glimpses of her along the way, but she's often outyelled by a grandstanding girl who has her eye on manufacturing an image that gets attention and sells books. And I'm not sure what a lot of the admittedly entertaining prose has to do with proving her thesis, whatever it is. She thanks a lot of people for advice and editing, but I'm afraid they just didn't do enough.

Yes, I grant that some of her book reads like an amphetamine-rushed thought-train headed off the tracks, but keeping up with her is not hard and quite worth the true laughter that bursts forth to ring in the room like music. Her humor is genuine and her intelligence evident, and what better way to praise difficult women than by being one?

What a great book! Not just for difficult women, but for all women. It deals with all the stereotypes women have dealt with for centuries. Sheltered or narrow minded women probably won't understand it and therefore will hate it-but who cares! I've still recommended it to everyone I know.