Girlhood

(Hardback)

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Description

For readers of Maggie Nelson and Leslie Jamison, a fierce and breathtaking set of meditations on female sexuality for the #MeToo generation. In her dazzling new collection, Melissa Febos captures the ordeals, achievements, and setbacks women face from girlhood into adulthood. Febos was eleven when her body began to change, and almost overnight, the way people spoke to, looked at, and treated her changed with it. As she grew, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. A quarter century later, in her mid-thirties, Febos experienced a time of reckoning, when she decided to confront and change some of the behaviors and beliefs that shed been carrying since adolescenceabout the female body, what love was, and what it meant to care for herself. Her rise to self-revelation paralleled the countrys, as the #metoo movement began the process of reckoning with what it means to grow up female in a patriarchal culture. In visceral, fearless essays that combine memoir, lyricism, investigative reporting, and scholarship, Febos draws a portrait of the forces that shaped her, and of an America where women are rarely free to define themselves. Girlhood is an anthem for women, a powerful exploration of the forces that seek to confine them, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood on a lifelong journey of discovery.

Reviews

[A] bold collection . . . The sheer fearlessness of the narrative is captivating. * The New Yorker on ABANDON ME *
Searing and eye-opening at every turn . . . a must-read. * The Huffington Post, 27 Nonfiction Books By Women Everyone Should Read This Year on ABANDON ME *
Its easy to fall in love with Melissa Febos' gorgeous new memoir of short essays. Febos brings a relentless curiosity and startling intimacy to the page . . . Abandon Me is a fierce exploration of love and obsession, but it is something else as well--the story of woman who is unafraid to explore the harsh truths and choices that shape our lives. * LAMBDA Literary on ABANDON ME *
Riveting . . . emotionally raw and stirring in a way that will have you aching for more. * Newsweek, "Best New Books of the Week" on ABANDON ME *
Abandon Me is a beautifully written journey through Febos' world. * Buzzfeed on ABANDON ME *
Anyone who's read Febos . . . knows that her work explores boundaries as deftly as it defies categorization. In this new collection of essays, she once again obliterates convention with her erotically charged and intellectually astute recollections of family, relationships and the search for identity. * Esquire.com, The Best Books of 2017 (So Far) on ABANDON ME *
Intensely intimate and wide-ranging. . . . Febos is voracious in her emotional cravings, but none is stronger than her desire to know and own herself. The hard-won ending (truly, a beginning) is exhilarating. * Oprah.com on ABANDON ME *
No subject is off-limits to Febos. She authorizes her reader to be braver, to dig deeper into their own secrets and to research those secrets in history . . . with each new piece Febos bends time. * The Rumpus on ABANDON ME *
Febos is a talented writer with a colorful personal history. * The Washington Post on ABANDON ME *

Author Bio

Melissa Febos is the author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist and Triangle Publishing Award finalist. Her essays have appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, Lenny Letter, and elsewhere. The recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Febos is the inaugural winner of The Jeanne Crdova Nonfiction Prize from LAMBDA Literary and serves on the directorial board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Monmouth University and lives in Brooklyn. melissafebos.com