The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw Emotional World of Male Teens

(Paperback)

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Description

Nerds, Druggies, Jocks. If popular media is to be believed, teenage boys in America all fall into one of these three categories. Rather than letting these stereotypes define American boys, journalist Malina Saval crisscrossed the country to interview young men from different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. In engaging prose, Saval reveals the confessions, sadness, optimism, and seemingly boundless resilience of male adolescents today. And she asks the pertinent questions: Who are these boys What do they think of themselves Their answers encourage us to reconsider how young people think, dream, and live. A compelling and uncensored look at teens in the twenty-first century, The Secret Lives of Boys uncovers what our young people want you to know.

Reviews

Booklist "Saval's well-edited portraits reflect real-life's nuances and messy contradictions and offer a refreshing, often-optimistic sense of male teens' strength and resilience. Boston Globe "Malina Saval has been called 'The Boy Whisperer' for her skill at getting teenage boys to open up (we need her at our house)." Library Journal Xpress Review (online) "Saval introduces us to ten very different teenage boys and makes a compelling case for the so-called problem with adolescent males being not the boys, but an overreliance on statistics and norms to tell their stories." New York Times Book Review "[R]eal, funny and astute... Parents, teachers and especially teenage girls will be fascinated to know that boys care about fashion, cry about girlfriends and have deep feelings. More important, they might see aspects of themselves reflected in these stories and realize, as I did, that boys aren't so mystifying -after all." Allison Burnett, author of Undiscovered Gyrl "With the objectivity of a sociologist and the compassion of a saint, Malina Saval takes us on a journey into the hearts and minds of teenaged boys, letting them do what our society rarely does: speak for themselves. The trip is painful, funny, frightening, hopeful, and, ultimately, unforgettable." Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy "Malina Saval's vibrant writing style and fascinating journeys into the lives of ten young boys provides parents with extremely useful information about how to help shepherd kids through adolescence in the 21st century...The Secret Lives of Boys is a must-read for people looking to understand the 'mainspring' of this demographic which we've been so quick to write off." Blake Nelson, author of Paranoid Park "A fascinating and up-to-the-second survey of that most mysterious segment of our population: teenaged boys." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "Through Saval's keen observations, we're allowed to meet 10 teenage boys who are complex, insightful, thoughtful, optimistic and resilient. You can't learn that from test scores."

Author Bio

Malina Saval's writing has appeared in Glamour, the Jerusalem Post, the Los Angeles Times, Heeb, Variety, Forward, RES, Moment, Unleashed, and LA Weekly, where The Secret Lives of Boys appeared first as a cover story. She lives in Los Angeles, California. www.malinasaval.com