Girlhood

(Paperback)

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National Bestseller In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them. When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories shed been told about herself and the habits and defenses shed developed over years of trying to meet others expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs. Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny. Written with Febos characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

Reviews

Feboss own voice is so irreverent and original. The aim of this book, though, is not simply to tell about her own life, but to listen to the pulses of many others. ... This solidarity puts Girlhood in a feminist canon that includes Feboss idol, Adrienne Rich, and Maggie Nelsons theory-minded masterpieces: smart, radical company, and not ordinary at all. * The New York Times Book Review *
Anyone who has ever been a girl or a woman will recognize the patterns Febos uncovers By following Febos's distinct paths between the past and present, we might realize there's room to forge our own, and that we've just been handed a flashlight that helps illuminate the way. * NPR *
The harrowing nature of transformation is Girlhoods core subject, and in seven chapters Febos explores the interconnected aspects of patriarchy and the marks that theyve left on her . . . magisterial. * The New Yorker *
Febos is an intoxicating writer, but I found myself most grateful for the vivid clarity of her thinking I never once needed trigonometry and I couldnt find Catullus in a crossword these days, but Feboss education is a kind I surely could have used. * The Atlantic *
I read GIRLHOOD in a long, marvelous guzzle and plan to teach it. Its language and emotional candor deepen the conversation on sexuality and the horrible liberties taken when were way too young to consent. But theres not an ounce of victim in Melissa Febos and shes a hero without ever trying to be. A classic! * Mary Karr *
Girlhood is an exquisite collection. In lapidary, lucid prose, Melissa Febos dissects the traumas, terrors, and pleasures of the fraught passage from girl to woman. Feboss insight is devastating, the examinations of her world from the female body, queerness, consent, slut-shaming, and intimacy are rigorous and compassionate. This is a book for mothers, daughters, and our deepest selves, a true light in the dark. * Stephanie Danler, author of SWEETBITTER *
I wish I could have read Girlhood when I was young . . . Over the course of eight essays with poignant illustrations by Forsyth Harmon, Febos interrogates the strength, savvy and vulnerabilities of girlhood . . . whether examining adolescent bullying and the etymological roots of the word slut or exploring the evolution of consent against the backdrop of cuddle parties, Febos illuminates how women are conditioned to be complicit in our own exploitation. Like much of her scholarship, it begins with somatic knowledge of the self. * The Washington Post *
In this book, Febos proves herself to be one of the great documenters of the terrible and exquisite depths of girlhood. Here, that terrible and beautiful aeon is dissected, sung over, explored like ancient ruins. These essays are moss and ironhard and beautifuland struck through with Febos signature brilliance and power and grace. An essential, heartbreaking project. * Carmen Maria Machado, author of IN THE DREAM HOUSE and HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES *
Melissa Febos is part poet, part theorist, and all writer. In this lyrical, searching, profound, and personal collection, Febos examines childhood, femaleness, and love in its many forms with a sensuous ferocity that is all her own. * Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply and Female Chauvinist Pigs *
In eight haunting essays, Melissa Febos unearths the trauma of her adolescence as she picks apart the burdens that accompany being a young woman. In sharing the darkness that clouded her coming of age, Febos asks pointed questions about the expectations placed on women and how they impact a persons sense of self. * Time *
In her searching essay collection, Girlhood, Febos combines personal, cultural, investigative, and scholarly passages to ferociously dissect the lessons that shaped her, and the result is a book that fills the educational void shed noticed. She centers her own experiences and the way she makes sense of them almost as a guide for women to redefine themselves. * Boston Globe *
Drawing on personal history, cultural analysis, and investigative reporting, Melissa Febos interrogates the meaning of girlhood, the narratives weve been sold, and the realities of growing up a woman. * Buzzfeed, most anticipated books of 2021 *
Intellectual and erotic, engaging and empowering, Girlhood lays bare the process of unlearning the most deeply ingrained lesson of female adolescencethat we ourselves are not masters of our own domainand offers us exquisite, ferocious language for embracing self-pleasure and self-love. * O, the Oprah Magazine *
Melissa Febos is a precise, visceral chronicler of what it means to be a woman in the world[Girlhood] is fierce and lyrical, furious and tender; a vital read for anyone figuring out who they really are, and have always been. * Refinery29, Best New Books to Read In 2021 *
To counter societys patriarchal standards and stereotypes enmesh girls in a web of unreachable expectations of mind, body and soul, Melissa Febos offers ideas to disrupt the normative narratives surrounding girlhood and encourages us to recreate ourselves according to ourselves. * Ms. *
Melissa Febos brings lyric and merciless scrutiny to how women are conditioned to accept misogyny as their due. . . By drawing upon cultural materials for her kaleidoscopic investigation, Febos does for girlhood what Maggie Nelson did for pregnancy in The Argonauts. * The Rumpus *
Melissa Febos just revived me in the most spectacular way. Girlhood blazes through the stories we've been told with a dazzling fury and a brilliant beauty. Whatever we are or were, this is a map to a new becoming. Between the intellect and the body a third term emerges, dissolving binaries and reinventing the space of erotic power and creativity. A fuck-all guide to resilience and reclamation, a breathtaking reimagination of who we might be in spite of what we've been told. Girlhood will bring you back to life. * Lidia Yuknavitch, author of VERGE *
At once intimate and didactic, lyric and wise, Girlhood is a must-read hybrid text for women looking to define themselves from the inside. This book is an exorcism of social messaging and external gazes, and Febos is a warm and erudite exorcist. * Melissa Broder, author of THE PISCES *
Reading Girlhood felt like having a spell whispered into my ear. You carve yourself, Melissa Febos writes, and the phrase becomes command, elegy, incantation. In these pages she conjures not only the past, but an allegory of experience at once universal and exquisitely personal. Intimate, urgent, and stunningly beautiful, this is a book that will be passed from hand to hand, from heart to heart. * Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author THE FACT OF A BODY *
American patriarchy teaches so many of us to hate our own bodies and stifle our own desiresto make ourselves smaller in every way. Girlhood is a smart, fierce, gloriously sensual critique of these lessons by a writer who has fought hard to unlearn them. Thank you, Melissa Febos, for charting this magnificent route of queer feminist resistance! * Leni Zumas, author of RED CLOCKS *
Her whole life, writer Melissa Febos has been forced to understand her body primarily through other peoples conceptions of it. If that sounds familiar to you, GIRLHOODa mix of investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship around what it truly means to be a young womanmight be right up your alley. (And if youre a parent struggling to understand what your teenage daughter is going through, its safe to say this book might help.) * Vogue.com *
This is a book youll wish you had in your youth, but one youll be glad to have now. * OprahMag.com, Most Anticipated Books of 2021 *
Febos is a balletic memoirist whose capacious gaze can take in so many seemingly disparate things and unfurl them in a graceful, cohesive wayshe dances deftly between her own autobiography and exposing the pervasive social history that markedsometimes literallyher personal experiences and those of many, many women. * OprahDaily *
A gorgeously written, perfectly calibrated investigation into the traps, paths, and challenges of being female in this world. It's a stunner of a book. * Jami Attenberg, author of ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS *
Lucid and timely...The great surprise of Girlhood is how masterfully Febos reinvents the path to womanhood, a philosophers eye turned protectively towards the tenderest parts of the writers former self. * Wendy S. Walters, author of MULTIPLY/ DIVIDE *
Febos's book forces us to linger in the nuances of sexuality, gender, consent, and eroticism. Her essays dive deep into all those gray waters of being a girl and then a woman: how self-loathing and self-love can crash against each other, creating a certain kind of dissonance that can take a lifetime to escape, if we ever do. If there is a way out, it might be through books like this one that give us a shared language for all the murky things we as women feel but too rarely speak. * Popsugar *
Fusing memoir, cultural commentary, and research, critically-acclaimed writer Febos explores the beauty and discomfort of girlhood (and womanhood) in her newest essay collection. With her signature lyricism and haunting honesty, the essays explore the ways girls inherit, create, interrogate, and rewrite the narratives of their lives. * The Millions *
For her third book, Melissa Febos has turned the lens on her own adolescence. Using a blend of theory and autobiography, she recounts her difficult early sexual experiences and time spent as a dominatrix and questions the patriarchal forces that shape the collective girlhood narrative. * Vulture (NY Mag) *
In an effort to reimagine those transitional years between girlhood and womanhood, Febos combs through her own past in a series of essays that blends investigative reporting

Author Bio

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart and two essay collections: Abandon Me and Girlhood. The inaugural winner of the Jeanne Crdova Nonfiction Award from LAMBDA Literary and the recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The BAU Institute, Vermont Studio Center, The Barbara Deming Foundation, and others; her essays have appeared in The Paris Review, The Believer, McSweeneys Quarterly, Granta, Sewanee Review, Tin House, The Sun, and The New York Times. She is an associate professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program.