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I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World [Hardcover]

Eve Ensler
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)


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Book Description

February 9, 2010
In this daring, provocative, and insightful book, bestselling author and internationally acclaimed playwright Eve Ensler writes fictional monologues and stories inspired by girls around the globe. Moving through a world of topics and emotions, these voices are fierce, alive, tender, complicated, imaginative, and smart. Girls today often find themselves in a struggle between remaining strong and true to themselves and conforming to society’s expectations in an attempt to please. They are taught not to be too intense, too passionate, too smart, too caring, too open. They are encouraged to shut down their instincts, their outrage, their desires and their dreams, to be polite, to obey the rules. I Am an Emotional Creature is a celebration of the authentic voice inside every girl and an inspiring call to action for girls everywhere to speak up, follow their dreams, and become the women they were always meant to be.

Among the girls Ensler creates are an American who struggles with peer pressure in a suburban high school; an anorexic blogging as she eats less and less; a Masai girl from Kenya unwilling to endure female genital mutilation; a Bulgarian sex slave, no more than fifteen, a Chinese factory worker making Barbies; an Iranian student who is tricked into a nose job; a pregnant girl trying to decide if she should keep her baby.

Through rants, poetry, questions, and facts, we come to understand the universality of girls everywhere: their resiliency, their wildness, their pain, their fears, their secrets, and their triumphs. I Am an Emotional Creature is a call, a reckoning, an education, an act of empowerment for girls, and an illumination for parents and for us all.


Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Written in the same format as her watershed work, The Vagina Monologues (1998), Ensler’s latest mélange of dramatic voices continues the mission of her philanthropic organization, V-Day, to stop violence against women. Published for adults but aimed straight at young adults, this volume provides a searing look at the inner lives of young females today in entries that explore sex, violence, love, body image, materialism, identity, family, friends, and the future. “You Tell Me How to Be a Girl in 2010” begins the collection with a furious catalog of the state of a girl’s world, from global war to everyday heartbreak: “Girls younger than me are giving blowjobs / in homeroom / and they don’t even know it’s sex.” The sobering international voices include child soldiers, young sex slaves, girls whose boyfriends hit them, and girls who starve and cut themselves. Other girls speak of honesty, tenderness, freedom, accomplishment, self-love, and defiance: “My short skirt / is not an invitation / a provocation / an indication / that I want it / or give it / or that I hook. . . . My short skirt is happiness. / I can feel myself on the ground. I am here. And I am hot.” With moving forewords by Carol Gilligan and Ensler, this powerful title, interspersed with shocking “Girl Facts,” serves as a potent call to girls to honor their emotions and to readers of all ages to uphold human rights at every level, from the boardroom to the bedroom. --Gillian Engberg

Review

"When I encounter 'teenage girl' stories, whether in novel, play, or film form, I tend to change the channel. Participating in pop culture’s clichéd teen experience is like recalling “simpler times.” It is remembering a past we can never get back, because it never existed. I can’t think of a time when my life was less defined—popularity was a murky concept, rules were rubber, and perfection was always just out of reach.

Leave it to Eve Ensler to get it right. Her new book, I Am an Emotional Creature, made me want to vomit from its emotional power. Ensler does not coddle the reader; instead she forces us to realize that teenage girls possess the largest untapped energy source in the world. Written in a similar format as her groundbreaking 1996 feminist theatrical work, The Vagina MonologuesI Am an Emotional Creature is a disjointed roller coaster of poems, fictional monologues, and scenes inspired by real girls around the world. Much like a quilt, the seams—the disparity between each piece—draw them closer together, even when the girls the stories describe live on opposite sides of the globe.  
Ensler’s world is a place where one high-school girl is tortured for her Ugg boots and another is mutilated for having a vagina, and she manages to tell both sides with equal degrees of honesty, courage, and heartache. Ultimately about all girls, this is a tale about dreams, nightmares, realities, boyfriends, fathers, body image, sports, friendship, popularity, mothers, piercings, and poetry. It’s the God’s honest truth, as my mother would say".—Bust Magazine

  “A searing look at the inner lives of young females today in entries that explore sex, violence, love, body image, materialism, identity, family, friends, and the future…A potent call to girls to honor their emotions and to readers of all ages to uphold human rights at every level, from the boardroom to the bedroom”—Booklist
 
"These are sorrowful voices, and the waste is everywhere: waste of beauty, talent, grace. Sometimes their powerful exuberance rises up and you believe they have a shot at happiness."—Los Angeles Times
 
"I Am an Emotional Creature" is thoughtful and provocative. Its unbiased acceptance of girls of all types is comforting and inspiring...Parents often lament about the drama and stress of raising a daughter. If they read Ensler's book, it might open up a discussion of the realities of generation Y."—The Associated Press
 

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Villard (February 9, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1400061040
  • ISBN-13: 978-1400061044
  • Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eve Ensler is a Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist. She is the author of international phenomenon, The Vagina Monologues, which won an Obie and has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Eve wrote the New York Times Bestseller, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World. She then adapted it as a play which ran to critical acclaim in South Africa, Paris, Berkeley and Off-Broadway. She is the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over 100 million dollars for grassroots organizations around the world. On V-Day's 15th Anniversary, it launched it's most ambitious campaign One Billion Rising which inspired one billion people in 207 countries to Strike Dance and Rise on Feb 14, 2013 for the freedom, safety and equality of women. With the women of Congo, V-Day opened and supports City of Joy in Bukavu, Congo, a revolutionary center where survivors of gender violence Turn Their Pain to Power. Eve starred in the HBO version of The Vagina Monologues. Her play Here was filmed live by Sky Television in London, UK. She co-produced the documentary What I Want My Words to You which won the Freedom of Expression Award at Sundance. Her other plays include Necessary Targets, The Treatment and The Good Body, which she performed on Broadway, followed by a national tour. In 2006, Eve released her book, Insecure At Last: A Political Memoir, and co-edited A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer. Her newest book In The Body of the World will be published by Holt. Ensler lives in the world.

Customer Reviews

From character to character, and story to story, the voice of her writing changed. Mumble  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
Also, there is a strong, negative anti-Catholic/Christian bias in this book. denak  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars V-Girls Revolution February 9, 2010
Format:Hardcover
Eve Ensler is launching her V-Girl Movement with this book. It will be accompanied by a curriculum created by her V-Girls Advisory Circle.

The essence of the book is in the "About" section of her new [...] web site. (Be sure to type "org" or you'll find yourself in misogyny-land!)

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE is the teenage version of Ms. Ensler's iconic THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES. It is classic Eve Ensler: extreme, dramatic, alive, emotional, and radical.

Her intent is to end the global mandate that conditions girls to please rather than to embrace their authentic voices. She wants us all to "love love love being a girl."

This book will be a great gift for any girl ~ no matter her age ~ who wants to unleash her feminine power and find her authentic voice.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Bold and powerful February 16, 2010
Format:Hardcover
I Am an Emotional Creature is, quite simply, a book of diverse monologues, told by young girls all around the world. Whether these girls' stories are familiar or foreign to you, they all are confronting the complex issue of defining oneself in a world full of contradictions, where girls are told they must be polite and pretty and perfect to fit in, yet are encouraged to be strong and independent and to dream big at the same time. Every girl's story is unique and equally jarring, from the simple confrontation of peer pressure in the average high school to tales of girls sold for sex miles and oceans away. This book is filled with girl stories: those forced to undergo unwanted plastic surgery, working in far-away factories making Barbies, pregnant girls, anorexic girls, and girls just talking. Each story is surprising and alive.

I Am an Emotional Creature is a hybrid in the style in which it is told. Though most of the monologues are straightforward prose, poems and scripts are sprinkled throughout these fictional stories, made even more realistic by the many "Girl Facts" interspersed throughout the book. Ensler captures the essence of being a girl and being human without being trite or even touching on clichés, and the result is a bold, incisive, emotional, and achingly real testament to teen girls and their power and verve. This book will not only make you think, but also quite possibly change the way you think about teen girls today.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazinggg as always! February 15, 2010
By Katie
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I LOVE Eve Ensler and The Vagina Monologues and have very high expectations for her work. She did not disappoint! Even though this book is intended for teenage girls, women of all ages will love it, and will read it over and over again. Read either as an entire book or as pieces, it's incredibly moving and motivational. I would definitely recommend buying it and copies for all the women in your life!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Eve, The First Lady
I like poetry; I like women(not above men); I like Eve. Eve again brings a voice to perhaps, where there was little or none. We all are Emotional Creatures.
Published 24 days ago by BUMWHISTLE
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!
Quick Read. But very touching. All these stories get you thinking. So many stories, so many girls, yet they all fight the same battle.
Published 2 months ago by Maria
5.0 out of 5 stars to be honest I bought it on the basis of cover, title and her...
I am so busy writing/illustrating kids' books and trying for a grant to go for an online gradduate certificate I haven't had a chance to read it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by alice grega
4.0 out of 5 stars I know I should feel optimism...
...and I do, to an extent. Ensler painter poetic pictures of being a girl in all walks of life. I feel optimistic that these topics are being written about, but as 'an emotional... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lane Cook
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
I am a huge fan of this book! I got it for my little sister (15 yrs. old) for Christmas and she loves it too! Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lacy
2.0 out of 5 stars Good idea, but not enough substance to make this a viable book
I love Eve Ensler, and her work. however this particular book I found very "weak" in terms of substance it made very little impact on me, and yet I loved the idea of it.
Published 3 months ago by Heather E. Cohen
3.0 out of 5 stars Not so sure
I've read the vagina monologues also by eve ensler and I have to say I liked it much more. Although I did like this book as well. Read more
Published 3 months ago by A fellow bookworm
3.0 out of 5 stars Great
I purchased this book as a gift for my teenage grand daughter. I am familiar with the author. I was already aware of her previous work. Read more
Published 4 months ago by joan mccall
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible
A must reading for woman young and old! The stories are compelling, funny, sad and a testament to the struggles of young women the world over. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Carol J. Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for all girls, moms, and people!
A sound piece of guidance for any family or person figuring out how to raise or become a grounded woman.
Published 4 months ago by puff pastry addict
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