Having it All: Love Success Sex Money... Even if You're Starting Wi, by Brown, Helen Gurley
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Helen Gurley Brown has long been the bane of certain feminists, probably due to a misperception of her intent. Her message is this book is not "find-a-man, find-a-man, find-a-man," but rather "find your life," and make as much of it as you wish. the methods she proposes for carving our that life can be exhausting to contemplate, but they make you feel like you have some control over your own destiny, which is what feminists have been fighting for. so forget that she wears makeup and pretty clothes and diets rigidly, if that bothers you, and focus on the self-determination she espouses instead. great book for when you feel like a rudderless fat slob.
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I agree with the other 1 & 2 star reviewers. This book had potential, but got lost in the authors endless sentences & Narcissism. This is basically padded common sense. It was at least 100 pages too long, & somewhat repetitive. This is a find-yourself before you can be happy with a mate type of self-help book. The only thing new & refreshing was that this author unlike many feminists did not spend much time bashing, or trying to fix men. Read Camille Paglia, Susan Faludi & Norah Vincents books if you want some insights that have more than the authors opinions to base their points on.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This book is incredible. Reading this book was like talking to my hip girlfriend. HGB writes about finding your path in life. This book is filled with good, solid common sense advice. This is one of those books that you will refer to time & time again!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By E.D. Emerson
Format:Hardcover
I was a college student working in a library when this book came out. I read it and realized that if I could take the first steps instead of waiting to be approached, I might connect with the type of man I wanted to marry. I stuck my neck out and approached a man who seemed to be what I was looking for: that was in 1983. We were married exactly one year later! Need I say more?
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this book, Mrs. Brown suggests a 1000 calorie a day diet, crash dieting, fasting, exercising when you are sick and tells the reader that men who like a bigger women are looking for mothers.
Two chapters of telling the reader anything over 110 pounds is pudgy and how to starve yourself into skinniness. Disgusting!
Two chapters of telling the reader anything over 110 pounds is pudgy and how to starve yourself into skinniness. Disgusting!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tonight, I learned that HGB has passed at age 90. I remembered that I read this book BEFORE I read her landmark "Sex and the Single Girl". I read that book years after I read this one, and thought: "Hey, SHE was the original Carrie Bradshaw of "Sex and the City" fame!"
So I decided to come online and write a VERY belated review of this book.
TRUTHFULLY, THIS IS LESS A REVIEW, THAN A EULOGY. Still...
Born in 1922, this was a woman who was truly ahead of her time. Remember, she survived, as a young kid, the Great Depression. And who, caring for a handicapped sister, and an elderly mother, with not much more than basic secretarial skills, made her way in the world.
I, born decades later, in 1952, could STILL identify with much of what she wrote about in this iconic book. Such as: -
-The limited opportunities for women at the time.
-The famous "double standard".
-The choices between children/family, and/or career.
Yes, some of her writing may seem "anti-feminist" , (because there is a good deal of focus on how women could get ahead in those years by choosing the "right" man) OR very "old-fashioned" to women who are now in their twenties, thirties, or even forties. (Simply because they can't remember a time when they were NOT equal to men. At least younger women in the USA can't seem to identify with this.)
BUT, if they, and older women, read it with an open mind, and an eye to the time in which she was born, they might understand just how much things have changed BECAUSE of women like HGB.
A true original has passed at the age of 90, and, like many of our elders, there are lessons to be learned that translate from her time to ours. If only we will listen.... Read more ›
So I decided to come online and write a VERY belated review of this book.
TRUTHFULLY, THIS IS LESS A REVIEW, THAN A EULOGY. Still...
Born in 1922, this was a woman who was truly ahead of her time. Remember, she survived, as a young kid, the Great Depression. And who, caring for a handicapped sister, and an elderly mother, with not much more than basic secretarial skills, made her way in the world.
I, born decades later, in 1952, could STILL identify with much of what she wrote about in this iconic book. Such as: -
-The limited opportunities for women at the time.
-The famous "double standard".
-The choices between children/family, and/or career.
Yes, some of her writing may seem "anti-feminist" , (because there is a good deal of focus on how women could get ahead in those years by choosing the "right" man) OR very "old-fashioned" to women who are now in their twenties, thirties, or even forties. (Simply because they can't remember a time when they were NOT equal to men. At least younger women in the USA can't seem to identify with this.)
BUT, if they, and older women, read it with an open mind, and an eye to the time in which she was born, they might understand just how much things have changed BECAUSE of women like HGB.
A true original has passed at the age of 90, and, like many of our elders, there are lessons to be learned that translate from her time to ours. If only we will listen.... Read more ›
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book as a historical read after reading Sex and the Single Girl.
I was impressed with the sound money advice she gives, since she was scared from the trauma of a poor childhood and I am certain that was the 'drive' that led her to fight for every bit of her career and for her marriage to David Brown. It was his gift of the editorship of Cosmo to Brown, despite having no magazine experience at all, that made her what she is today.
Yet the advice of being semi anorexic, lauding a 102 pound, 5'10" Cheryl Teigs as healthy, and optifast as a solution by her doctor to go from 110 to 105 pounds on a 5'4" frame. Yet we also have to remember that she is in an industry that is run by gay men who want women to look like little boys. Her friend Eleanor Revson is another example she sites in her book of someone who exercises 2 hours a day and also doesn't eat. Of course she had to in order to wear designer clothes and to stay as young looking as possible to keep her husband from trading her in for a younger wife.
But to tell women that its ok to sleep with a married man, when she herself would probably kill David Brown if she caught him, is total hypocrasy. Its morally wrong to advise anyone to be involved with a married human being despite how sexually liberated one proclaims to be.
I was impressed with the sound money advice she gives, since she was scared from the trauma of a poor childhood and I am certain that was the 'drive' that led her to fight for every bit of her career and for her marriage to David Brown. It was his gift of the editorship of Cosmo to Brown, despite having no magazine experience at all, that made her what she is today.
Yet the advice of being semi anorexic, lauding a 102 pound, 5'10" Cheryl Teigs as healthy, and optifast as a solution by her doctor to go from 110 to 105 pounds on a 5'4" frame. Yet we also have to remember that she is in an industry that is run by gay men who want women to look like little boys. Her friend Eleanor Revson is another example she sites in her book of someone who exercises 2 hours a day and also doesn't eat. Of course she had to in order to wear designer clothes and to stay as young looking as possible to keep her husband from trading her in for a younger wife.
But to tell women that its ok to sleep with a married man, when she herself would probably kill David Brown if she caught him, is total hypocrasy. Its morally wrong to advise anyone to be involved with a married human being despite how sexually liberated one proclaims to be.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it!
Great book!! Absolutely loved it! This woman is amazing! Funny! Tells it like it is! I would read this one again!
Published 5 months ago by L. G. Kauppinen
5.0 out of 5 stars
still applies today
I like her attitude and most of her ideas discussed in this book still applies to how to having it all as a young aspiring professional woman today. My mum likes her too! Read more
Published 6 months ago by Wang Wenxin
5.0 out of 5 stars
All Good
I was very happy to find this book and at a very good price. it arrived fast and in better condition then I expected. All good.
SG
SG
Published 22 months ago by SGarratt
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dated but useful
I read this book when I was in my early 20s, and thought at the time that it was very inspirational and innovative. Read more
Published on January 28, 2011 by Maverick
1.0 out of 5 stars
What a fruitcake!
What a weird little skeletal-like woman. Starving herself, giving up sugar (though she admits going back on in later books), working constantly, never having kids and dismissing... Read more
Published on April 29, 2004 by just write well
2.0 out of 5 stars
Impossible to Read
After seeing an entertaining Biography special on Helen Gurley Brown, I thought I'd track down one of her books. Unfortunately, Ms. Read more
Published on July 7, 2003 by Bekka
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