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.

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.

If you read this book with an open mind, there is not one person who wouldn't benefit from it. It's an in-depth description/study on some of the main topics circulating around eating disorders. Courtney structured the book topic by topic or rather, chapter by chapter, and for each new section she made sure to mention some real life stories alongside how people are handling or not handling it and how it affects the young girls suffering from these disorders or are bordering that uncompromisable leap. She does so in a very respectful manner because stepping on anyone's toes, especially in a matter so difficult and sensitive as eating disorders, is no where near helpful or motivational.

Some of the topics focused on are the father-daughter/mother-daughter connection, the media's influence, sexual drive in correlation to society, spirituality, the college years, the years after college and many more. Overall I highly recommend this book for anyone because the information is vital in helping everyone to be culturally competent when it comes to eating disorders. People will learn that there is no rhyme or reason when finding a causation and how the real topic at hand is not the outer display of disarray, but the inner turmoil paired up with that drive to be "perfect."

Any downfalls?
--She makes slight mention of men suffering from eating disorders, but it is definitely a book primarily based around girls and women who struggle with them. Yet this is not to say men can't read this book and take anything away from it--that is definitely NOT the case. Society, as a whole, influences what is around them, and as much as people (both male and female) like to think, eating disorders are not just a problem for one half of the population. Guys do affect how women think of themselves. Again, it's not the WHOLE picture, but it can be apart of it. So for those father's who are raising a daughter, read this. For those father's raising a son, read this. If you don't want to read this book, then read another one that seems more approachable because whether you like it or not, eating disorder rates are rising and the amount of helpful preparation girls are receiving isn't getting nearly the increase required to combat the detrimental rate.
--Also, this book alludes to some feminist topics. Reading this book when you're an anti-feminist without an open mind to new ideas that may or may not change your concrete opinion will not benefit you and it will not benefit others in need of help. This is not to say you cannot read any eating disorder books because you'll cause others to stumble. This is just to say that this book is probably not going to be put on your "I love you this book" shelf. She's VERY respectful and endearing, from what I saw, and she only means to be an advocate for those quieted by their "perfect girl" identity. Take it lightly and remember the girls reading this, like myself, who are struggling with this problem.

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As far as shipping goes, the book came earlier than expected! At first, the estimated delivery date was set for March 15th, but it came on Pi Day. Awesome job by Amazon.com LLC :)