all about empowerment

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: YA

Review: Ok, this book is a little pat in some places. Turning your life around is probably not as easy as Carolyn Mackler would make it out to be. That being said, this is a really good book. Virginia (or Ginny) is a believable, sympathetic, likable character. Her problems are real, and her solutions to them are fun, if not entirely realistic. But they work for her, and I, at least, was willing to go along for the ride.

A good read aside, Mackler also deals with some serious issues in the book, including date rape and eating disorders (no, neither apply directly to Ginny). These I thought she dealt with very well, and very realistically, showing that not everything wraps up in a neat package at the end, and not every problem can always be solved.

Overall, this is just a good story about a girl who manages to find ways to empower herself despite not always (or usually) getting a lot of support from her family. But she has help from other people around her and figures out how to be herself, and, more importantly, how to be comfortable being herself.

second one first

Girlbomb by Janice Erlbaum
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: memoir
Challenge: A-Z (author)
Review: I'm kind of glad that I read Janice Erlbaum's second memoir, Have You Found Her, first. It allowed me to read her first one and not have to worry too much that she got seriously hurt. Or went crazy, which is what I think I would have done in her circumstances. Instead, Erlbaum left home, and turned to drugs and sex as a teenager, and she relates her experiences with both with a candor that is unapologetic at the same time it is tinged with regret.

Erlbaum's problems at this time of her life seem to stem from a combination of poor parenting and poor decision-making. Unfortunately, neither the shelter nor the group home into which she is placed seem well-equipped to really help her with either of those problems. It almost seems as though by leaving home she's gone from the frying pan into the fire. It all catches up with her at the end, though, and at the close of this memoir we begin to see the more mature woman that we got to know in her second memoir. I hope she writes a third so that we can continue to share her story.