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From Amazon
Ophelia Speaks by Sara Shandler is a clever response to Mary Pipher's bestselling Reviving Ophelia. Shandler reveals telling portraits of teenage girls in this book, a compilation of essays, poems, and true-grit commentary from a cross section of teenage girls (or Ophelias), throughout the country. The book succeeds because it gives voice to their deepest concerns and their too-often frenzied lives. Because she's a college student, Shandler considers herself a peer of these adolescent girls, able to tap into their collective consciousness.
Shandler is as determined as she is a sharp reporter in chronicling the lives of these young women. To research the book, she sent out a mass mailing of 7,000 letters to high school and junior high school principals, counselors, and teachers explaining her book project and urging them to encourage teenage girls to contribute.
The topics covered run the gamut, but they include parental expectations, racial relations, and faith, among others. Sadly, eating disorders are an all-too-popular topic. The good news is that Shandler's contributors offer up some real insight for their peers. In one essay titled "Food Is Not My Enemy," Elizabeth Fales "calls us to a new feminism. In the old feminism, our mothers fought for the right to choose abortion. In our generation, we must fight for the right to eat."
The book also gives practical insight for parents who may find it hard to relate to their teenage daughters. In a nutshell, it appears that adolescent girls want unconditional love from parents who can be confidants without being overly critical. --Peg Melnick
From Publishers Weekly
Inspired by Mary Pipher's 1994 bestseller Reviving Ophelia, which shed new light on the problems of contemporary female adolescence, Shandler, currently an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, set out to give voice to the real Ophelias, America's teenaged girlsAherself included. Just 16 years old when she started this project, Shandler enlisted the help of hundreds of educators, counselors, pastors and administrators to find other girls who wanted to write about the issues most important to them. Ranging from problems with body image and self-mutilation to difficult relationships with parents and other family members, to intense academic pressures, the book is organized by subject and includes entries from dozens of girls across the country. We see girls in distant communities facing similar struggles as they attempt to navigate the pressured and competitive world of adolescence. Judging from the hundreds of contributions Shandler received, the issues these girls raise are weighty ones that our whole society needs be concerned about. Many of the girls write in an intensely personal style, but their concerns should not be written off as diary angst. Shandler has done an admirable job of shaping the disparate pieces into a disturbing mosaic that reveals the seriousness of teenage problems.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I was a media-fed child. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I was a media-fed child. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Telling it like it is,
By
This review is from: Ophelia Speaks (Paperback)
In reading this book, I found it to be exactly like the life of a teenage girl. Anyone could read this book and get something out of it. In idea, it reminds me of the Chicken Soup series, but I enjoyed how it only focused on teenage girls and the struggles that they face. Excellent Read! Get it today!
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ophelia Speaks:Stereotyping all female adolescents,
By
This review is from: Ophelia Speaks (Paperback)
'Ophelia Speaks' by Shandler is a poor attemp at writing on Shandler's part. I had to read this book for my SOC 204 class, but otherwise I would have never picked this book up to read. I found the book to be only a collection of letters, stories and poems that Shandler had collected from adolescent girls. Most of these entries did not capture the true life of adolescent girls but instead glamourized the stereotypes that society has about female adolescents. The author, at the time of collecting these reading, was only 17 and it seems as if she was just putting this book together to make a few extra bucks. As well, I believe that since she sent out a letter asking for submissions for the book, I feel that the girls that wrote the entries, were meerly looking for some sort of fame by having their entries in this book. I also cannot stand how the author's experiences never reflect the experiences of the writings; this further indicates that the writings are not accurate. The author also never comes to any conclusion after a chapter. She could have given some psychological/sociolgical/physiological reasoning behind some of the girls experiences.I would not refer anyone to read this book. It was a waste of time and money. Save your money and spend it on better things.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Widen The Search,
By Conan the Librarian (Incognito CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ophelia Speaks (Paperback)
'Ophelia Speaks : Adolescent Girls Write About Their Search for Self' is an essential addition to the vital library focused on teenage personal development. I gave Sara Shandler's book to my daughter and suggested that while she was searching for self, she might also look for her homework sheets, the four overdue library books I've been ordered to pay for, the banana skin I'd seen in her closet two months ago, the family cat last heard meowing under a mountain of crumpled jeans on her floor and her best friend, Marsha Pippens, missing, presumed piled, since last Saturday's sleepover.
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