Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women [Paperback]

Courtney E. Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2008

This eye-opening look at twenty-first century culture and its impact on women reveals how food and weight obsession, driven in no small part by images of celebrities openly wasting away, threatens a new generation of girls as the feminist exhortation that “you can do anything” is twisted into “you must do everything.” It also inspires readers to consider what wonderful things might happen if the madness stopped once and for all.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Courtney E. Martin, M.A., received degrees from Barnard College and New York University.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade; Reprint edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425223361
• ISBN-13: 978-0425223369
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Courtney E. Martin is the award-winning author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women called "a hardcover punch in the gut" by Arianna Huffington and "a smart and spirited rant that makes for thought-provoking reading" by the New York Times.

She is also a widely-read freelance journalist and regular blogger for Feministing. She is a Senior Correspondent for The American Prospect Online and her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and the Christian Science Monitor, among others.

In addition, Courtney consults with social justice organizations throughout the nation, including the Ms. Foundation for Women, the National Council for Research on Women, and the Bartos Institute for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict. She has conducted workshops for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty throughout the nation.

Courtney also co-wrote the life story of AIDS activist Marvelyn Brown, called The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive. She is currently at work on a book for Beacon Press about ten people under 35 creating innovative social change and an anthology for Seal Press about the moments that made young women feminists.

In addition, she has essays in many anthologies, including A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox (Oxford University Press), and Declare Yourself: Fifty American Talk about Why Voting Matters (Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins).

She has been on Good Morning America, the TODAY Show, the O'Reilly Factor, and MSNBC, and spoken on radio programs and at colleges, non-profits, and parenting organizations across the nation.

Courtney has an M.A. from the Gallatin School at New York University in writing and social change and a B.A. from Barnard College in political science and sociology. She is a Woodhull fellow and part of the Progressive Women's Voices Project at the Women's Media Center. She was awarded the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics in 2002 and was a Resident at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center this summer. Courtney also founded The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy, just named one of the NEW York 100.

When she isn't working, which is not nearly enough of the time, she is walking in Brooklyn's Prospect Park or conspiring to create unselfconscious dance parties with her amazing friends.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important book, I loved it., February 17, 2009

By 

Heather O'Roark "Heatherlee" (Round Lake, Il USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women (Paperback)

Martin brings an intelligent, spot-on, and completely fresh analysis to the issues of eating disorders/disordered eating, body image, and self-esteem in young women. She seamlessly weaves true stories of women and girls she personally knows and/or met and interviewed for the purpose of writing the book with facts, statistics, and quotes from tons of other sources. Her research is meticulous, and the personal stories are interesting and compelling. Martin's writing is also fantastic. I tore through this nonfiction book faster than I can read a lot of fiction - her writing flowed so well and the content was incredibly fascinating.

Also, if you read other reviews of the book, not everyone agrees with me about how fantastic it is. So, yeah, the book resonated with me and with my personal experiences. A lot. I do not have an eating disorder, but I have plenty of experience with disordered eating, feeling like crap about oneself, comparing oneself to others constantly, etc. Personally and otherwise. So I get it. I get what the book is saying and I truly related to the stories within it. That is most likely a large part of why I liked it so much. But regardless of your personal experiences, I believe Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is a terrific read.

I absolutely, 100% cannot recommend this book enough. If you are female, and/or if you have a daughter, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is a MUST-read. Truly. This was one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An okay book about eating disorders, not the best., February 12, 2009

By 

Suze - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women (Paperback)

I found the author's insights to be a little vacuous. Her angle (for a large portion of the book) is that there haven't been many books about eating disorders in 'our generation.' That is, most of the other books (autobiographical or otherwise) aren't up to date.

I can agree with that, but she falls short of saying much else that hasn't already been said (for example, "Gaining: the Truth About Life After Eating Disorders" has a lot of the same study data, and gives pretty similar personal accounts).

She references contemporary problems, cites works like "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture," (a book I would recommend), but doesn't go much further than that.

My overall impression of "Perfect Girls" was just, 'hey, I'm a 20-something, I'm aware there are cultural, social, psychological and physiological issues related to the prevalence of eating disorders, and here's some data from other people that may or may not be relevant.' I don't think this is a badly written book, or that it doesn't provide solid information about eating disorders, but the only NEW thing it has to offer is it's publishing date.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique take on the subject, December 21, 2008

By 

Nikki (NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women (Paperback)

This book feels really personal, as though you're having an intimate conversation. The research is also top notch. It's a great book to read if you are a woman and have ever been insecure about your body, especially if you are under 30. While the author and I would have run in different social circles in school, I really identified with the issues facing young women today.