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What Girls Are Made Of
A 2017 National Book Award for Young People's Literature Finalist
This is not a story of sugar and spice and everything nice.
When Nina Faye was fourteen, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. Nina believed her. Now Nina is sixteen. And she'll do anything for the boy she loves, just to prove she's worthy of him. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost. What if she is not a girlfriend? What is she made of?
Broken-hearted, Nina tries to figure out what the conditions of love are. She's been volunteering at a high-kill animal shelter where she realizes that for dogs waiting to be adopted, love comes only to those with youth, symmetry, and quietness. She also ruminates on the strange, dark time her mother took her to Italy to see statues of saints who endured unspeakable torture because of their unquestioning devotion to the divine. Is this what love is?
This is not a story of sugar and spice and everything nice.
When Nina Faye was fourteen, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. Nina believed her. Now Nina is sixteen. And she'll do anything for the boy she loves, just to prove she's worthy of him. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost. What if she is not a girlfriend? What is she made of?
Broken-hearted, Nina tries to figure out what the conditions of love are. She's been volunteering at a high-kill animal shelter where she realizes that for dogs waiting to be adopted, love comes only to those with youth, symmetry, and quietness. She also ruminates on the strange, dark time her mother took her to Italy to see statues of saints who endured unspeakable torture because of their unquestioning devotion to the divine. Is this what love is?
200 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2017
187 people are currently reading
8010 people want to read
About the author
Elana K. Arnold
40 books1,077 followersELANA K. ARNOLD writes books for and about children and teens. She holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing/Fiction from the University of California, Davis where she has taught Creative Writing and Adolescent Literature. Her most recent YA novel, DAMSEL, is a Printz Honor book, Her 2017 novel, WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her middle grade novel, A BOY CALLED BAT, is a Junior Library Guild Selection. A parent and educator living in Huntington Beach, California, Elana is a frequent speaker at schools, libraries, and writers’ conferences. Currently, Elana is the caretaker of seven pets, only three of which have fur. Sign up for her newsletter here: https://elanakarnold.us10.list-manage...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 739 reviews
April 17, 2017
“As long as there have been women,” Mom told me, “there have been ways to punish them for being women.”
4 1/2 stars. Oh god, I can already imagine how hated this book will be. I've seen Arnold's books in the past, noted their starred reviews from popular journals, and then turned away when GR reviewers pulled the average rating down to 3.6, 3.5, 3.4. After reading this book, I took a closer inspection and I see over and over again: “unlikeable narrator”, “depressing”, “disturbing” “fucked up”.
Now I understand. Because What Girls Are Made Of is all of those things. It made me feel sixteen again, so messed up and confused, insecure, scared and unsure of everything. Arnold isn't trying to make you feel comfortable or lift your spirits. I recommend reading this when you're in a happy place.
It's about a sixteen-year-old girl called Nina. When she was fourteen, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. “I could stop loving you at any time,” my mother said. Based on the conditions Nina has witnessed around her - beauty, sex, wealth, playing "hard to get" - she easily believes her.
Two years later and Nina is in a toxic relationship. But it's more complex than that, and it's hard to explain. The story effortlessly moves between several different things: Nina's tale in the present of her trying to make sense of love, its conditions, and the expectations placed on women and girls; her time working at a high-kill animal shelter where she is constantly faced with reminders that love is conditional - on age, on appearance, on temperament - as dogs are hurt and abandoned; a past vacation to Rome where Nina is forced to contemplate a long history of women as objects, sacrifices and virginal martyrs; and Nina's own stories.
That was one of my favourite parts. The main narrative is occasionally broken up with one of Nina's stories. Dark, depressing allegories that are almost Atwood-esque. Here is where the author showcases some of her best writing.
It is such a raw, painfully-human book. The author doesn't skim over any nasty details about sex, masturbation, or abortion (including a detailed pelvic exam, which I honestly would have found very informative as a teen). In fact, it's about all the nastiness. It's about the demands society puts on young girls and the sad, awful lengths they will go to in order to meet them. Nina is no cliche. She isn't a "strong female character" or a "badass heroine". She's seriously messed up and weak and melodramatic. I loved her, though. I understood her, even though I wish I didn't.
Highly-recommended for fans of dark, hard-hitting books. The author's note at the end is a must-read also.
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July 15, 2016
When I was growing up, I always loved books that allowed me to learn about things that the adults in my life didn't think I should know. This is a book like that.
It's not an easy read. The main character volunteers at a high-kill animal shelter, punishment for something horrible she did to another student at her school. The book is full of caged animals and stories of female saints violently martyred for Jesus.
At the same time, the book also normalizes, demystifies, and brings into the open the female body, what happens during a visit to Planned Parenthood, during an orgasm, during an abortion in a way I've never seen a YA book attempt.
A bold, subversive, and important book about what it means to be a girl - and what it COULD mean in a better world. I can't stop thinking about it.
It's not an easy read. The main character volunteers at a high-kill animal shelter, punishment for something horrible she did to another student at her school. The book is full of caged animals and stories of female saints violently martyred for Jesus.
At the same time, the book also normalizes, demystifies, and brings into the open the female body, what happens during a visit to Planned Parenthood, during an orgasm, during an abortion in a way I've never seen a YA book attempt.
A bold, subversive, and important book about what it means to be a girl - and what it COULD mean in a better world. I can't stop thinking about it.
September 2, 2017
Such a short book, and upsetting and painful in so many varied ways. I liked it and I think it's important, but I am getting weary of such a dire view of womanhood. Maybe too many feminist stories back to back? I am ready to read about healthy realationships and some non-beastly men.
Explicit.
Explicit.
November 16, 2017
I literally just finished this so maybe I will get around to writing a comprehensive review. (Though, let’s be honest, unlikely...)
I will say the Author’s Note at the end was one of most powerful and honest things I have ever read. If you read nothing of this book but that note you won’t be disappointed.
I will say the Author’s Note at the end was one of most powerful and honest things I have ever read. If you read nothing of this book but that note you won’t be disappointed.
August 10, 2018
What Girls are Made Of is a great example of how empathy should work in literature and, in particular, that genre we call Young Adult literature. Empathy is not just an identification with, or a “stepping into the shoes of”, nor is it our simple “liking” of the fictional character. Empathy may contain all those emotional elements but if there is no appeal to the mind and to the understanding, then you end up with what feels like sentimental manipulation on the part of the author. Arnold’s portrayal of Nina, a young woman who hungers for unconditional love and slavishly worships her boyfriend is such that, we, as readers, respond with a kind of wholeness of mind and heart that goes beyond the weak kind of empathy sought after by so many Young Adult novels. This portrayal of Nina’s inner and outer world is realistic in the best sense of the word. We recognize as real Nina’s mental state because we have experienced it in ourselves and the book becomes, depending on our level of self-awareness, either the discovery or the reminder that we too have felt that before and have thought the same kind of thoughts that Nina is thinking. In that discovery or reminder of common humanity lies the true value of empathy. Nina has a hunger for unconditional love that we all have. But the book is not so much about this hunger or about whether there is such a thing as love without conditions as it is about the inner sense of unworthiness from which the hunger springs and our willingness to do some pretty crazy stuff to satisfy it. It explores with subtlety some of the possible origins of that inner shame without beating us over the head with psychological truisms (the portrayal Nina’s mother, for example, leaves you with a sense that something is wrong with that relationship and with the mother but you still have to figure out exactly what this is). When I finished reading the book, I thought that maybe the title was wrong. I’m not a girl and I am made very much like Nina. But no, the title is correct. The difference between Nina and me is that I do not have hanging over me years and years of history, culture, social norms that say that I should love another human being with unconditional obedience. One of the most impressive things about the author’s art in this book is how she manages to enhance the particular story of Nina’s martyr-like love with the universal story of women whose souls and bodies were destroyed by a man’s (as in the human male) demands for a woman’s adoration. And ultimately, I think, being a man and being able to see how a woman sees, is the kind of seeing that empathy is all about. I am grateful to Elana K. Arnold for the clearer vision she has given me.
January 31, 2018
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, why not?” Ruth says.
“Do you believe in unconditional love?”
“Absolutely,” Ruth says. “It’s one of the most dangerous forces in the universe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Unconditional love is how dogs feel about their masters. Dogs love their masters no matter how badly they’re beaten, how rarely they’re fed, and how terribly they’re cared for. They don’t know any better than to love without conditions.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “I mean, between people.”
“There is no unconditional love between people,” Ruth says. “That kind of love flows one way, like a dog to its master. [ . . . ] When someone loves unconditionally, they’re saying, ‘I am your dog. You are my god.’ That’s who unconditional love is for—dogs and their masters, fools and their gods.”
(pp. 168-169)
Elana K. Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of is a thought-provoking and richly allusive novel. It is a study of the obsessive, subservient, first-love of so many young women, in which their own agency, wants, and needs are secondary to those of the object of their love. Often, girls have little awareness of this agency or even knowledge about how their bodies work or respond. When 16-year-old Nina becomes involved with Seth, whom she met in fifth grade and has romantically idealized for years, she goes to a Planned Parenthood clinic for “protection”. The nurse practitioner who examines her there offers to show her, help her understand her anatomy, and Nina, taken aback at the very idea, quickly declines.
Things, of course, don’t go well with Seth. Physically attractive he may be, but lovable or sensitive he is not. I think it’s fair to say that he is a selfish lout, but he certainly knows what he wants. Mind you, Nina isn’t particularly sensitive either. Obsessive adolescent love can do this to a person: remove any interest in anyone but the “beloved”. In stereotypical fashion, Nina ditches her best friend Louise in order to spend time with Seth, even while knowing how “not feminist” this is. Nina is also doing community service—in a dog shelter, a disturbing place where the vast majority of the poor, rejected animals end up being euthanized—to atone for a malicious act the previous year that she intended to humiliate Seth’s former girlfriend, an exotic Portuguese beauty called Apollonia Corado.
Arnold uses Nina’s mother—who (as a young woman) travelled to Italy to study art—to educate Nina about the history of female representation in art and the experiences of several female saints. When Nina’s father--a distant figure, more a rumour than a presence in the novel--“bailed” on the twentieth-wedding-anniversary trip to Rome so carefully planned by his wife, fourteen-year-old Nina had gone instead. There, her mother acted as a sort of docent in the many art galleries and churches the two visited, speaking frankly to her then fourteen-year-old daughter as one adult to another. Of particular significance was the trip the two took to see Bernini’s famous sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. There, Nina’s mother pointed out that Teresa’s sculpted expression is as much one of sexual ecstasy as religious. While fixation on Jesus may have felt protective against predatory males, the Catholic virgin martyr saints’ histories—which Nina claims to have heard as childhood bedtime stories from her mother—show that the virgins’ refusal to engage with men both titillated and infuriated these powerful males, provoking them to torture the beautiful and saintly young girls.
In the course of the novel, Arnold shows that Nina’s recollections of her mother’s many and frequent miscarriages, her experiences with her mother both at home and in Europe, and her interactions with people and dogs at the animal shelter help her understand herself when the relationship with Seth fails. Nina’s unwitting absorption of the cultural code of female passivity and objectification put me in mind of Simone de Beauvoir’s sharp observations in The Second Sex , which I read when I was a young adult. I likely missed a lot in that book, but I certainly remember de Beauvoir’s comments about females regarding themselves not as free subjects but as the objects of society’s—i.e., males’—gaze.
The copy of What Girls Are Made Of that I read includes a jacket-flap thumbnail biography of the author. Somewhat unusually, it tells us that the author writes books “for and about children and teens.” What Girls Are Made Of is certainly about a teen-aged girl, but it may be of more interest to adult women or older “young adult” readers. The content is intellectually sophisticated and makes demands that not all young adults are ready for. It is also very sexually frank—with a few more details than I feel are actually needed. Having said that, a lot of teenagers I’ve known have surprised me with just how matter-of-fact they can be about sex.
In the end, my chief reservation about the book concerns characterization. I didn’t find Nina entirely convincing as a character. Her voice is too clear and articulate for her stated age. The excerpts of Nina’s writing (for an English project on magical realism) that are woven into the text are likewise too sophisticated and refined to pass as those of a sixteen or seventeen year old. I’ve read surprisingly polished work from fourteen-year-old kids, but Nina’s pieces are just too finely and artistically rendered to be credible. The only two significant adults in Arnold’s novel—Nina’s mother and the shelter manager, Ruth—are puppets in the hands of the author. They deliver commentary that instructs Nina on her journey--commentary which also amplifies the themes Arnold is preoccupied with. Another problem is that Nina’s parents are often conveniently absent to serve the needs of the plot. They are nowhere on site when Nina messes around with Seth nor are they aware of a significant crisis their daughter has to face. Towards the end of the book, the author conveniently implies that Nina’s mother’s distance is due to alcoholism.
In spite of the reservations I had about the novel, I found What Girls Are Made Of to be an interesting and thought-provoking read with some lovely writing in it. Thank you to my Goodreads friend, Melissa, for bringing the book to my attention.
For anyone interested in some of the art discussed in Arnold’s novel, I’ve provided a couple of links:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/2016...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy...
“Sure, why not?” Ruth says.
“Do you believe in unconditional love?”
“Absolutely,” Ruth says. “It’s one of the most dangerous forces in the universe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Unconditional love is how dogs feel about their masters. Dogs love their masters no matter how badly they’re beaten, how rarely they’re fed, and how terribly they’re cared for. They don’t know any better than to love without conditions.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “I mean, between people.”
“There is no unconditional love between people,” Ruth says. “That kind of love flows one way, like a dog to its master. [ . . . ] When someone loves unconditionally, they’re saying, ‘I am your dog. You are my god.’ That’s who unconditional love is for—dogs and their masters, fools and their gods.”
(pp. 168-169)
Elana K. Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of is a thought-provoking and richly allusive novel. It is a study of the obsessive, subservient, first-love of so many young women, in which their own agency, wants, and needs are secondary to those of the object of their love. Often, girls have little awareness of this agency or even knowledge about how their bodies work or respond. When 16-year-old Nina becomes involved with Seth, whom she met in fifth grade and has romantically idealized for years, she goes to a Planned Parenthood clinic for “protection”. The nurse practitioner who examines her there offers to show her, help her understand her anatomy, and Nina, taken aback at the very idea, quickly declines.
Things, of course, don’t go well with Seth. Physically attractive he may be, but lovable or sensitive he is not. I think it’s fair to say that he is a selfish lout, but he certainly knows what he wants. Mind you, Nina isn’t particularly sensitive either. Obsessive adolescent love can do this to a person: remove any interest in anyone but the “beloved”. In stereotypical fashion, Nina ditches her best friend Louise in order to spend time with Seth, even while knowing how “not feminist” this is. Nina is also doing community service—in a dog shelter, a disturbing place where the vast majority of the poor, rejected animals end up being euthanized—to atone for a malicious act the previous year that she intended to humiliate Seth’s former girlfriend, an exotic Portuguese beauty called Apollonia Corado.
Arnold uses Nina’s mother—who (as a young woman) travelled to Italy to study art—to educate Nina about the history of female representation in art and the experiences of several female saints. When Nina’s father--a distant figure, more a rumour than a presence in the novel--“bailed” on the twentieth-wedding-anniversary trip to Rome so carefully planned by his wife, fourteen-year-old Nina had gone instead. There, her mother acted as a sort of docent in the many art galleries and churches the two visited, speaking frankly to her then fourteen-year-old daughter as one adult to another. Of particular significance was the trip the two took to see Bernini’s famous sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. There, Nina’s mother pointed out that Teresa’s sculpted expression is as much one of sexual ecstasy as religious. While fixation on Jesus may have felt protective against predatory males, the Catholic virgin martyr saints’ histories—which Nina claims to have heard as childhood bedtime stories from her mother—show that the virgins’ refusal to engage with men both titillated and infuriated these powerful males, provoking them to torture the beautiful and saintly young girls.
In the course of the novel, Arnold shows that Nina’s recollections of her mother’s many and frequent miscarriages, her experiences with her mother both at home and in Europe, and her interactions with people and dogs at the animal shelter help her understand herself when the relationship with Seth fails. Nina’s unwitting absorption of the cultural code of female passivity and objectification put me in mind of Simone de Beauvoir’s sharp observations in The Second Sex , which I read when I was a young adult. I likely missed a lot in that book, but I certainly remember de Beauvoir’s comments about females regarding themselves not as free subjects but as the objects of society’s—i.e., males’—gaze.
The copy of What Girls Are Made Of that I read includes a jacket-flap thumbnail biography of the author. Somewhat unusually, it tells us that the author writes books “for and about children and teens.” What Girls Are Made Of is certainly about a teen-aged girl, but it may be of more interest to adult women or older “young adult” readers. The content is intellectually sophisticated and makes demands that not all young adults are ready for. It is also very sexually frank—with a few more details than I feel are actually needed. Having said that, a lot of teenagers I’ve known have surprised me with just how matter-of-fact they can be about sex.
In the end, my chief reservation about the book concerns characterization. I didn’t find Nina entirely convincing as a character. Her voice is too clear and articulate for her stated age. The excerpts of Nina’s writing (for an English project on magical realism) that are woven into the text are likewise too sophisticated and refined to pass as those of a sixteen or seventeen year old. I’ve read surprisingly polished work from fourteen-year-old kids, but Nina’s pieces are just too finely and artistically rendered to be credible. The only two significant adults in Arnold’s novel—Nina’s mother and the shelter manager, Ruth—are puppets in the hands of the author. They deliver commentary that instructs Nina on her journey--commentary which also amplifies the themes Arnold is preoccupied with. Another problem is that Nina’s parents are often conveniently absent to serve the needs of the plot. They are nowhere on site when Nina messes around with Seth nor are they aware of a significant crisis their daughter has to face. Towards the end of the book, the author conveniently implies that Nina’s mother’s distance is due to alcoholism.
In spite of the reservations I had about the novel, I found What Girls Are Made Of to be an interesting and thought-provoking read with some lovely writing in it. Thank you to my Goodreads friend, Melissa, for bringing the book to my attention.
For anyone interested in some of the art discussed in Arnold’s novel, I’ve provided a couple of links:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/2016...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy...
Read
April 25, 2017Well, damn.
I thought I loved Infandous, but this, THIS, is a killer story about being a girl. It's raw and gross and unsettling and perfect.
I thought I loved Infandous, but this, THIS, is a killer story about being a girl. It's raw and gross and unsettling and perfect.
May 9, 2018
If you’re looking for something that is going to push boundaries, and not hold back on much of the goriness of being a girl, this could well be the kind of book you’re after.
In What Girls Are Made Of, Nina Faye journeys from obtaining birth control through to the gory details of going through a medical abortion. Readers are shown her obsession with a boy named Seth, both before, during, and after dating him.
The rest, while confronting, while discussing things that are definitely important in this society which is still often squeamish about the bodily functions of women, just doesn’t seem to get where it’s trying to go.
The rest of this review can be found HERE!
----------------
Pre-Review
----------------
Review to come.
Rather unsure of what the point was, limited motivation to keep reading, and it all felt rather preachy and edgy for the sake of being edgy.
In What Girls Are Made Of, Nina Faye journeys from obtaining birth control through to the gory details of going through a medical abortion. Readers are shown her obsession with a boy named Seth, both before, during, and after dating him.
Is reciprocity a condition for love? I have always accepted that my mother is right – that no one will love me without conditions. But I reject the idea that I must set conditions for loving Seth. I want to love someone no matter what. I want to love someone even if it hurts me. Am I a saint? A broken dog in a cardboard box?She talks about miscarriages, masturbation, and martyrs. About self-induced orgasms vs. unsatisfying sex with the object of her affection. She works in a high-kill animal shelter and talks openly about the dogs that are more likely to be adopted than others, and what happens to the animals who are put to sleep.
Then the bodies are boiled. Yes, boiled. To separate the fat, which is sold through a bidding process to whoever can pay the most for it. The fat is used to make lipstick. Household cleaners. Dog food. Cat food. The bones are ground up, and they end up in pet food, too. Like the Soylent Green of the animal kingdom.She talks about the way women have been and continue to be treated by society.
Only when everything useful has been stripped from the dog’s carcass is it burned to ash.
“It was used to punish women who had sex with Satan,” Mom said, her voice matter-of fact, “and to punish women who allowed themselves to miscarry.”In between chapters, readers are given a taste of Nina’s own writing, in the form of short or flash fiction of a magical realism flavour, but with a revisited theme of the way women have been and continue to be treated and used by society.
“Allowed themselves to?” I didn’t know which sounded more insane – thinking that women were having sex with the devil or blaming women for their miscarriages. But then I remembered with a twinge how I had felt when my mother’s crystal tumbler reappeared after she had lost the baby I’d named Chloe. Part of me had been angry. Part of me did blame her, even though I had never spoken about it with her, with anyone.
“As long as there have been women,” Mom told me, “there have been ways to punish them for being women.”
So far I have written one story about a girl who grows vaginas all over he body, a couple of weird little things about chickens and eggs, and I have a growing collection of stories I’ve written about the deaths of virgin martyr saints, but I’m not ready to share any of it with him, or anyone.For this reader, these in-between bits were the most enjoyable part of the book.
The rest, while confronting, while discussing things that are definitely important in this society which is still often squeamish about the bodily functions of women, just doesn’t seem to get where it’s trying to go.
The rest of this review can be found HERE!
----------------
Pre-Review
----------------
Review to come.
Rather unsure of what the point was, limited motivation to keep reading, and it all felt rather preachy and edgy for the sake of being edgy.
June 29, 2019
Explicit but in a more educational way. Reminds me of Forever by Judy Blume.
Depressing and blunt and to the point.
I enjoyed the author’s note at the end more than the book. But I’m 20 years too late to gain much from it.
Depressing and blunt and to the point.
I enjoyed the author’s note at the end more than the book. But I’m 20 years too late to gain much from it.
March 10, 2018
I’m pretty conflicted on this one. I loved the brutal honesty and the message, but I really didn’t enjoy reading this much at all. 2 1/2 stars
This is a coming of age story of Nina, a teenage girl with a crappy boyfriend and a crappy mom who once told Nina that unconditional love does not exist. We watch Nina grow and find herself over this short novel of less than 200 pages.
Honestly, I only picked this up because the blurb mentioned the main character volunteering at a high kill animal shelter, something I also do. It’s really not a big part of the book, but it was pretty accurate. I wonder if the author has experience herself with working in shelters. Based on the details, I would guess so. While most California shelters are actually in pretty good shape, I was glad the author didn’t shy away from the brutality seen in many shelters. And she acknowledged pit bulls and Chihuahuas, the most common breeds in Cali shelters!
I know the main character is supposed to be a flawed person, but I actually really liked her. I didn’t even think the bad things she had done were that bad?
This book includes a lot of graphic sex, among other gross stuff. I’m glad this book exists and it’s great that the author wasn’t afraid to show, well, anything, really. But...I really don’t wanna read that stuff, personally. I know it won’t bug others, but it’s not my cup of tea.
Objectively, this is a good, well written book that explores important things and showcases strong character growth. It wasn’t for me, but others may love how honest this story is!
This is a coming of age story of Nina, a teenage girl with a crappy boyfriend and a crappy mom who once told Nina that unconditional love does not exist. We watch Nina grow and find herself over this short novel of less than 200 pages.
Honestly, I only picked this up because the blurb mentioned the main character volunteering at a high kill animal shelter, something I also do. It’s really not a big part of the book, but it was pretty accurate. I wonder if the author has experience herself with working in shelters. Based on the details, I would guess so. While most California shelters are actually in pretty good shape, I was glad the author didn’t shy away from the brutality seen in many shelters. And she acknowledged pit bulls and Chihuahuas, the most common breeds in Cali shelters!
I know the main character is supposed to be a flawed person, but I actually really liked her. I didn’t even think the bad things she had done were that bad?
This book includes a lot of graphic sex, among other gross stuff. I’m glad this book exists and it’s great that the author wasn’t afraid to show, well, anything, really. But...I really don’t wanna read that stuff, personally. I know it won’t bug others, but it’s not my cup of tea.
Objectively, this is a good, well written book that explores important things and showcases strong character growth. It wasn’t for me, but others may love how honest this story is!
Read
May 21, 2019Arnold is witty and sharp and not for me.
Excerpt from full review:
I'm disappointed the answer to "What Girls Are Made Of?" is not, "A diverse spectrum of things -- conservative, adventurous, beautiful, brave, shy, capable, worthy of love and respect -- we are all so different and all deserve to be loved as we find our way." Instead it is more like, "We're sexual, subordinate, spiteful, lonely and did I mention, sexual? And we are d*mn-well allowed to be!" The problem with this answer is that some girls may feel they are those things, but "girls" are not those things and they are sucky things to be defined by. I've seen a lot of reviews saying this one is for the feminists. I completely disagree. This book is for those who are anti-taboo; for those who wolf-whistle when they find a work that holds nothing sacred; "YUS, FREEDOM OF SPEECH!" That is not the same as being a feminist. Being vulgar and reserving nothing as private is not a feminist requirement, just like aiming for dignity and respect in regards to sexual discussions doesn't disqualify me from being a feminist. I am all for equal women's rights; describing my husband's penis to you doesn't achieve that.
Read the rest here:
http://strikingkeys.blogspot.com/2017...
Excerpt from full review:
I'm disappointed the answer to "What Girls Are Made Of?" is not, "A diverse spectrum of things -- conservative, adventurous, beautiful, brave, shy, capable, worthy of love and respect -- we are all so different and all deserve to be loved as we find our way." Instead it is more like, "We're sexual, subordinate, spiteful, lonely and did I mention, sexual? And we are d*mn-well allowed to be!" The problem with this answer is that some girls may feel they are those things, but "girls" are not those things and they are sucky things to be defined by. I've seen a lot of reviews saying this one is for the feminists. I completely disagree. This book is for those who are anti-taboo; for those who wolf-whistle when they find a work that holds nothing sacred; "YUS, FREEDOM OF SPEECH!" That is not the same as being a feminist. Being vulgar and reserving nothing as private is not a feminist requirement, just like aiming for dignity and respect in regards to sexual discussions doesn't disqualify me from being a feminist. I am all for equal women's rights; describing my husband's penis to you doesn't achieve that.
Read the rest here:
http://strikingkeys.blogspot.com/2017...
May 26, 2018
A very serious book. but must read for all the girls & women out there.
December 19, 2017
"As long as there have been women," Mom told me, "there have always been ways to punish them for being women." (page 156)
The 2017 YA contemporary novel, "What Girls Are Made Of," by Elana K. Arnold, is a masterwork. The plot, character arc, thematic story elements, and prose style all combine in a tour de force of literary prose -- deceptively packaged and sold as a Young Adult book.
If you enjoy reading the poetry, short stories, novels and nonfiction of Margaret Atwood, and/or if you love to read modern stories with strong feminist messaging, then I highly recommend "What Girls Are Made Of." This book is a masterpiece.
The teenage main character of this novel, an affluent young woman named Nina, is the traditional fare of the YA world: she is white, cis, able-bodied, neurotypical, heterosexual, thin, and conventionally attractive. Her parents are married. She lives in a spacious, immaculate home, commonly recognized as the modern isolation chamber of the well-off.
Nina also begins the novel in possession of a boyfriend, a handsome and affluent white classmate named Seth.
None of the characters initially introduced in this book are likeable. None. While there is certainly change and growth in this story, the reader must trust that redemption is coming. Based on nothing more than the exquisite prose on each page, the reader must have faith that the story will eventually break through the incessant horror show on display in the mindset of Nina and the people she interacts with for most of the book.
Author Elana K. Arnold plotted a book that is subtle, nuanced, and tremendously powerful. She set her story against the backdrop of patriarchy and misogyny without ever using those terms in the book -- and yet, those words *are* the book. Nina's redemption at the end of this story is so immensely satisfying because the scope of what she is up against is never absent from the page.
I loved this ugly, compelling, beautiful book. Highly recommended. This is an excellent read.
The 2017 YA contemporary novel, "What Girls Are Made Of," by Elana K. Arnold, is a masterwork. The plot, character arc, thematic story elements, and prose style all combine in a tour de force of literary prose -- deceptively packaged and sold as a Young Adult book.
If you enjoy reading the poetry, short stories, novels and nonfiction of Margaret Atwood, and/or if you love to read modern stories with strong feminist messaging, then I highly recommend "What Girls Are Made Of." This book is a masterpiece.
The teenage main character of this novel, an affluent young woman named Nina, is the traditional fare of the YA world: she is white, cis, able-bodied, neurotypical, heterosexual, thin, and conventionally attractive. Her parents are married. She lives in a spacious, immaculate home, commonly recognized as the modern isolation chamber of the well-off.
Nina also begins the novel in possession of a boyfriend, a handsome and affluent white classmate named Seth.
None of the characters initially introduced in this book are likeable. None. While there is certainly change and growth in this story, the reader must trust that redemption is coming. Based on nothing more than the exquisite prose on each page, the reader must have faith that the story will eventually break through the incessant horror show on display in the mindset of Nina and the people she interacts with for most of the book.
Author Elana K. Arnold plotted a book that is subtle, nuanced, and tremendously powerful. She set her story against the backdrop of patriarchy and misogyny without ever using those terms in the book -- and yet, those words *are* the book. Nina's redemption at the end of this story is so immensely satisfying because the scope of what she is up against is never absent from the page.
I loved this ugly, compelling, beautiful book. Highly recommended. This is an excellent read.
Read
August 23, 2017Arnold’s author note in her book talks about the inspiration coming from the idea of girls being “sugar and spice and everything nice.” She talks about the shame she felt about the idea of never living up to that standard growing up, that things like her body and its normal functions were shameful things for her to even think about. This plays out in her powerhouse book.
Nina’s boyfriend Seth is her world. She’ll do anything to make him happy. To have his attention. But when the relationship ends suddenly, Nina can’t help but reflect upon what she did. Why she wasn’t good enough. What would make her a better good girl to that boy.
The story flips between flashbacks and the present, along with a series of short vignettes that all highlight the roles girls and women are put into societally. This book is unashamed to talk about bodily functions, about choices girls can and do make for themselves, and the ways that girls can sometimes sabotage one another . . . as a means of getting the attention of another boy.
A short, raw, and powerful story and says a tremendous amount about the patriarchy, about feminism, and the way girls are trained to be “good.”
–Kelly Jensen
from The Best Books We Read In April 2017: https://bookriot.com/2017/05/01/riot-...
Nina’s boyfriend Seth is her world. She’ll do anything to make him happy. To have his attention. But when the relationship ends suddenly, Nina can’t help but reflect upon what she did. Why she wasn’t good enough. What would make her a better good girl to that boy.
The story flips between flashbacks and the present, along with a series of short vignettes that all highlight the roles girls and women are put into societally. This book is unashamed to talk about bodily functions, about choices girls can and do make for themselves, and the ways that girls can sometimes sabotage one another . . . as a means of getting the attention of another boy.
A short, raw, and powerful story and says a tremendous amount about the patriarchy, about feminism, and the way girls are trained to be “good.”
–Kelly Jensen
from The Best Books We Read In April 2017: https://bookriot.com/2017/05/01/riot-...
January 12, 2018
I just finished this and I'm so glad it was my first read of 2018, I don't think any review will do this book justice. I loved it.
It's not what you think, it's not only based on love or unconditional love, there are many others things, it's entirely different and I can tell not so many are going to like what it's about. I found myself relating to a lot of situations that was mentioned in the book just like any 16 years old girl would do! some thoughts that we all shared, things we would have done..
Overall, this book was a hit for me, especially since I'm trying to do more YA and realistic fiction reading, I'd like to recommend it but not everyone has the same tastes in books.. Honestly I'm really happy about my choice in this book, I don't know.. It felt like it was just what I needed!
It's not what you think, it's not only based on love or unconditional love, there are many others things, it's entirely different and I can tell not so many are going to like what it's about. I found myself relating to a lot of situations that was mentioned in the book just like any 16 years old girl would do! some thoughts that we all shared, things we would have done..
Overall, this book was a hit for me, especially since I'm trying to do more YA and realistic fiction reading, I'd like to recommend it but not everyone has the same tastes in books.. Honestly I'm really happy about my choice in this book, I don't know.. It felt like it was just what I needed!
May 4, 2018
What are they then, this horde, these women, if they are not the fawning lovers of their god? Who are they, free of the conditions they have accepted like layers of chains?
Wake now, beauties. Rise and look around. Shake off the chains. Give up the ghost of love.
Wow, wow what a weird, honest and beautiful book. I wish I could've read it as a teenager. It's been a few days since I've finished it, and it's still on my mind. I loved this bit from the author's note: I don't write books to teach lessons. I write them to sort through the many things that fascinate, scare, repulse, and thrill me.
Growing up, standing up for yourself, becoming a feminist... all those things are a process. And I understand why some readers might dislike our main protagonist, but to me she was real, messy, confused, I was rooting for her.
I was a mouth, gaping and undone. I was a satchel, pulled apart and waiting to be filled. I was a chasm, a vortex, a winding endless funnel.
I was the emptiness inside of things. I was the negative space.
Fill me, feed me, give me shape.
The book is not as dramatic as the blurb says it to be, or as dark as some reviewers portray it. It's a story of what girls are made of - and sometimes they're just not nice, and they're not trying (or want) to be.
You don't owe anyone a slice of your soul.
April 20, 2019
Whoa this book's good! Well worth a read. Odd. Fascinating. Truthful in what society expects from girls, but never what girls actually feel.
Stay for the author's note. It shot my rating up by half a star.
Good stuff. 4/5
Stay for the author's note. It shot my rating up by half a star.
Good stuff. 4/5
April 6, 2022
4.5 stars
I surprisingly liked this much more than I had thought I would. Initially, I was a little wary of trying What Girls Are Made Of. To be honest, I’m already exhausted with bleak, edgy feminist narratives that show the reader all the messed up things about patriarchal culture — stories that show women in terrorized and helpless social positions while men are portrayed as one-dimensionally evil and sadistic. I share Eve Sedgwick’s (a great feminist theorist) concern that narratives that operate under paranoia and direness have been done to death already and there’s nothing surprising anymore about stories that tell you about all the evils that exist in this world. At this point, I am more excited about a different breed of feminist stories — stories that are realistic, but are ultimately about hope, reparation and glimpsing new possibilities for a different kind of future.
But even if my personal taste in feminist literature leans more towards the reparative, I must admit that Arnold wrote a very raw, painful and compelling story here. I couldn’t help but feel gripped as Nina recounts how painful sexual awakening is for her, how feverish her desire is for Seth and how she will do anything for the object of her desire — even at the expense of sacrificing herself and her joy. I’m glad that Arnold does not romanticize this unhealthy attraction though. What she does is humanize the people who have felt this overwhelming desire. And I get it. I really do. The writing was beautiful and it managed to convey the horrific truths and feelings that come with desiring someone who seems larger than life (although, I do wish this was a meatier novel, with more scenes devoted to explaining how she fell for Seth). I think this exploration of Nina’s female sexuality, the issues that arise from being in a relationship with someone who’s emotionally unavailable and how she uses sex to numb the pain of perpetual yearning, were strangely compelling and soul-crushing — it was hard to look away. Nina is such a fully-realized narrator — she reminds me of Marcos from Tender is the Flesh because of this feeling in the narrative that she’s dead inside. I normally don’t gravitate towards characters who are melodramatic, who make all the wrong decisions in life, but Arnold’s writing is powerful. Nina’s story is skillfully conveyed and I understood everything she felt even when I didn’t agree with many of her actions and choices.
I just think everything about this story is better than Arnold’s Damsel. The writing is pretty and powerful, but not pretentious and unnecessarily purple (which was occasionally the case with Damsel). The narrator’s voice is fully realized, the portrayal of non-committal sex and its psychological ramifications is unflinchingly honest and will make you think about the state of romantic relationships in our age.
A couple of reasons why I held back from giving 5 stars:
1.) I wish the novel was slightly meatier. The introspective angst was spot-on, but I feel like as a result of Nina being mostly stuck inside her tumultuous mind, less attention was given to fleshing out secondary characters. I feel like Seth’s character is under-explored particularly and I wish we heard more from him in this story. Although, I would say the dissolution of their relationship and how one normally doesn’t get all the answers (as to why someone broke up with you) is realistic in its lack of neatness.
2.) I wish there were some non-monstrous men in this novel. While I thought the feminism here is more complex than in Damsel, I still feel like all the male characters in this novel were portrayed negatively and I just don’t like reinforcing this idea that all men are the same — that they’re all evil and cruel in this patriarchal society that we have. I think analyzing and portraying gendered relations requires more nuance than that. It was less of an issue for me in this novel though than in Damsel because the story is a first-person narrative that really zones in on Nina and what she thinks and how she views her present relationships. It is primarily her story and everybody else is secondary to her character arc.
I think these qualms are minor. I look forward to whatever Arnold writes next. This novel will stay with me and I expect I’ll be thinking about it in the days to come.
I surprisingly liked this much more than I had thought I would. Initially, I was a little wary of trying What Girls Are Made Of. To be honest, I’m already exhausted with bleak, edgy feminist narratives that show the reader all the messed up things about patriarchal culture — stories that show women in terrorized and helpless social positions while men are portrayed as one-dimensionally evil and sadistic. I share Eve Sedgwick’s (a great feminist theorist) concern that narratives that operate under paranoia and direness have been done to death already and there’s nothing surprising anymore about stories that tell you about all the evils that exist in this world. At this point, I am more excited about a different breed of feminist stories — stories that are realistic, but are ultimately about hope, reparation and glimpsing new possibilities for a different kind of future.
But even if my personal taste in feminist literature leans more towards the reparative, I must admit that Arnold wrote a very raw, painful and compelling story here. I couldn’t help but feel gripped as Nina recounts how painful sexual awakening is for her, how feverish her desire is for Seth and how she will do anything for the object of her desire — even at the expense of sacrificing herself and her joy. I’m glad that Arnold does not romanticize this unhealthy attraction though. What she does is humanize the people who have felt this overwhelming desire. And I get it. I really do. The writing was beautiful and it managed to convey the horrific truths and feelings that come with desiring someone who seems larger than life (although, I do wish this was a meatier novel, with more scenes devoted to explaining how she fell for Seth). I think this exploration of Nina’s female sexuality, the issues that arise from being in a relationship with someone who’s emotionally unavailable and how she uses sex to numb the pain of perpetual yearning, were strangely compelling and soul-crushing — it was hard to look away. Nina is such a fully-realized narrator — she reminds me of Marcos from Tender is the Flesh because of this feeling in the narrative that she’s dead inside. I normally don’t gravitate towards characters who are melodramatic, who make all the wrong decisions in life, but Arnold’s writing is powerful. Nina’s story is skillfully conveyed and I understood everything she felt even when I didn’t agree with many of her actions and choices.
I just think everything about this story is better than Arnold’s Damsel. The writing is pretty and powerful, but not pretentious and unnecessarily purple (which was occasionally the case with Damsel). The narrator’s voice is fully realized, the portrayal of non-committal sex and its psychological ramifications is unflinchingly honest and will make you think about the state of romantic relationships in our age.
A couple of reasons why I held back from giving 5 stars:
1.) I wish the novel was slightly meatier. The introspective angst was spot-on, but I feel like as a result of Nina being mostly stuck inside her tumultuous mind, less attention was given to fleshing out secondary characters. I feel like Seth’s character is under-explored particularly and I wish we heard more from him in this story. Although, I would say the dissolution of their relationship and how one normally doesn’t get all the answers (as to why someone broke up with you) is realistic in its lack of neatness.
2.) I wish there were some non-monstrous men in this novel. While I thought the feminism here is more complex than in Damsel, I still feel like all the male characters in this novel were portrayed negatively and I just don’t like reinforcing this idea that all men are the same — that they’re all evil and cruel in this patriarchal society that we have. I think analyzing and portraying gendered relations requires more nuance than that. It was less of an issue for me in this novel though than in Damsel because the story is a first-person narrative that really zones in on Nina and what she thinks and how she views her present relationships. It is primarily her story and everybody else is secondary to her character arc.
I think these qualms are minor. I look forward to whatever Arnold writes next. This novel will stay with me and I expect I’ll be thinking about it in the days to come.
December 18, 2024
Crudo dall'inizio alla fine, non da sicuramente spazio all'immaginazione.
Per quanto conciso è stato molto chiaro: la vita è una, il tempo è poco, dobbiamo amarci di più e pensare di più a noi stessi, poi vengono gli altri.
Basta trascurarsi e andare contro corrente per futili cottarelle. Basta guardarsi allo specchio e pensare che a LUI/LEI non piaci per quel dettaglio.
Ma tu...ti ami?
Per quanto conciso è stato molto chiaro: la vita è una, il tempo è poco, dobbiamo amarci di più e pensare di più a noi stessi, poi vengono gli altri.
Basta trascurarsi e andare contro corrente per futili cottarelle. Basta guardarsi allo specchio e pensare che a LUI/LEI non piaci per quel dettaglio.
Ma tu...ti ami?
January 30, 2019
What Girls Are Made of is realistic fiction that is both poetic and blunt, vulnerable and guarded. It may not be an enjoyable read, yet it is riveting.
I am filled with admiration for the author and her ability to represent adolescence and incorporate gritty, personal details of ordinary, physical life using neither clinical terminology nor slang. Certainly, readers will trust in and feel reassured by representations of unexpected menstrual blood and independently achieved orgasms. Surely, readers will glean accurate information about largely unspoken elements of life, like what actually happens to the corpses of euthanized animals and what medical abortions and their aftermaths are actually like. Likewise, readers will acquire a lens for the effects of emotional absence, for the futility of suppressing the self in search of love, and the positive results of creative expression. In Nina, readers will find a warning rather than a hero. She will inspire girls to grow into a strength of self that she lacks.
I am also feeling fear for this book, which will either go unnoticed and unread by those who could benefit from the story, or which will be challenged by censors whose goal will be to protect teen readers from the world they already walk. The other potential future for this book is a trajectory like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, an unflinching story that reigned the word of mouth canon.
The language and structure of this book are exemplary, even if the characters are deliberately distasteful. Perhaps the largest theme is this: "You can't make people love you. Love isn't something you earn, or something you deserve. Love just is. Or it isn't" (180). As painful as it is to watch Nina (or a real person) manage her every expression in a misguided effort to attract a lasting affection, it is necessary component of the characterization and plot.
The author's note is absolutely worthwhile and appreciated.
Although I respect the writing and I continue to ponder the story and its implications, which is the trait of a good story, I can't shake the awareness that this is a book to recommend with prudence.
I am filled with admiration for the author and her ability to represent adolescence and incorporate gritty, personal details of ordinary, physical life using neither clinical terminology nor slang. Certainly, readers will trust in and feel reassured by representations of unexpected menstrual blood and independently achieved orgasms. Surely, readers will glean accurate information about largely unspoken elements of life, like what actually happens to the corpses of euthanized animals and what medical abortions and their aftermaths are actually like. Likewise, readers will acquire a lens for the effects of emotional absence, for the futility of suppressing the self in search of love, and the positive results of creative expression. In Nina, readers will find a warning rather than a hero. She will inspire girls to grow into a strength of self that she lacks.
I am also feeling fear for this book, which will either go unnoticed and unread by those who could benefit from the story, or which will be challenged by censors whose goal will be to protect teen readers from the world they already walk. The other potential future for this book is a trajectory like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, an unflinching story that reigned the word of mouth canon.
The language and structure of this book are exemplary, even if the characters are deliberately distasteful. Perhaps the largest theme is this: "You can't make people love you. Love isn't something you earn, or something you deserve. Love just is. Or it isn't" (180). As painful as it is to watch Nina (or a real person) manage her every expression in a misguided effort to attract a lasting affection, it is necessary component of the characterization and plot.
The author's note is absolutely worthwhile and appreciated.
Although I respect the writing and I continue to ponder the story and its implications, which is the trait of a good story, I can't shake the awareness that this is a book to recommend with prudence.
October 14, 2017
***WARNING many sick, dead and abused animals. MC works in a high kill shelter***
I hate hate hate books that include abused or dead animals. Maim or kill all the humans in any way possible but don’t hurt the animals. Minus one star for animal abuse.
Nina defines herself by her ability to please her boyfriend Seth and his love for her. Perhaps because at age fourteen, her mother told her unconditional love doesn’t exist and she could stop loving Nina at any moment. Perhaps because of her parents loveless marriage. For whatever reason, she will do anything to please the clueless jerk Seth.
Elana Arnold never shies away from Nina’s sex life. Arnold never flashes the *unhealthy attitude* surrounding her MC’s use of sex to please, she trusts readers enough to see the inequity in Nina and Seth’s relationship and to want Nina to expect more from her boyfriend. I want to call WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF as a sex positive book. Even though Nina’s attitudes are unhealthy until very late in the book, the story doesn’t shy away from the reality of teen sex, orgasms, birth control, pregnancy and abortion.
WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF made me sad. Nina had one of the most emotionally neglectful set of parents I’ve ever read. She didn’t have an older woman to counselor her, though several women showed Nina kindness when she needed them.
WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF made use of allegories as Nina’s writings and while well-written, they didn’t work for me. I also thought the use of saints in artwork, which showing misogyny, detracted from Nina’s story. Arnold’s writing when Nina narrated her story fully engaged me.
Readers who enjoy stories of teenage girls and their emotional and sexual development will devour WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF.
I hate hate hate books that include abused or dead animals. Maim or kill all the humans in any way possible but don’t hurt the animals. Minus one star for animal abuse.
Nina defines herself by her ability to please her boyfriend Seth and his love for her. Perhaps because at age fourteen, her mother told her unconditional love doesn’t exist and she could stop loving Nina at any moment. Perhaps because of her parents loveless marriage. For whatever reason, she will do anything to please the clueless jerk Seth.
Elana Arnold never shies away from Nina’s sex life. Arnold never flashes the *unhealthy attitude* surrounding her MC’s use of sex to please, she trusts readers enough to see the inequity in Nina and Seth’s relationship and to want Nina to expect more from her boyfriend. I want to call WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF as a sex positive book. Even though Nina’s attitudes are unhealthy until very late in the book, the story doesn’t shy away from the reality of teen sex, orgasms, birth control, pregnancy and abortion.
WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF made me sad. Nina had one of the most emotionally neglectful set of parents I’ve ever read. She didn’t have an older woman to counselor her, though several women showed Nina kindness when she needed them.
WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF made use of allegories as Nina’s writings and while well-written, they didn’t work for me. I also thought the use of saints in artwork, which showing misogyny, detracted from Nina’s story. Arnold’s writing when Nina narrated her story fully engaged me.
Readers who enjoy stories of teenage girls and their emotional and sexual development will devour WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF.
May 28, 2017
No one writes about the visceral, terrifying, gory experience of being a girl like Elana K. Arnold. Gorgeous language, vividly imagined stories within the main story, heartbreaking reality of what it means to grow up as a girl. So good and necessary.
October 22, 2017
Second read. Brilliant and important. Don't miss the author's note.
December 10, 2018
"I was a mouth, gaping and undone. I was a satchel pulled apart and waiting to be filled. I was a chasm, a vortex, a winding endless funnel.
I was the emptiness inside of things. I was the negative space.
Fill me, feed me, give me shape.
A running theme of my 2018 reading has turned out to be books about being a woman and what that entails - My Brilliant Friend and its sequels, Troubling Love, The Days of Abandonment, The Female Persuasion, What We Owe, When I Hit You, Vuosisadan rakkaustarina, to name a few. All of these amazing books have dealt with being a grown woman, most of the protagonists 20 or older. What Girls Are Made Of tackles girlhood, especially being a teenage girl. That is very common of a young adult novel to do, but Arnold's writing style elevates the story of girlhood to a completely another level.
Our main character, sixteen-year-old Nina Faye, was told by her mother that there is no such thing as unconditional love. In a world where a woman's love is expected to be a fully devoted love, a love where the woman is willing to go above and beyond her needs for someone, to be subservient, this comment shocks her. After all, what Nina feels for Seth, her perfect boyfriend, feels like unconditional love to her. This lays the groundwork for Arnold's sharp, cut-to-the-chase analysis of the place of girls and women in society and the expectations society has of us - that we are there to love and maybe, possibly, be loved back. But only under conditions: we aren't allowed to have any, but the men that 'love' us are allowed to have a laundry list of terms and conditions.
Throughout the novel, Nina explores the idea of love and subservience. There are some brilliant shorter passages throughout the novel, most of them talking about Christian saint and martyr women and their unconditional love for Jesus. These stories, we learn, have been written by Nina. To tie the abuse and mistreatment these saints had to ensue in the name of love to modern-day romance is a brilliantly intelligent move by Arnold and one that took me by surprise in the best way possible. It shows just how far back into history these expectations are rooted in, and how, while the world has changed a lot, certain structures will always remain. Nina's story is hers, but it has this background echo of endless women throughout history.
I've read one too many young adult novels - and DNFd even more - where the author tries too hard to get on "the level of the youths" that the entire end product is just reminiscent of that "how do you do, fellow kids?" meme. What Girls Are Made Of completely lacks that flaw. Arnold does not dumb it down for her readers. Instead, she shows the reader an insane amount of compassion in sharing Nina's experiences. She shows the young audience of this novel that there is pain in growing up into a woman. That this myth of the pure, disinfected, all-around perfect teenage girl is bullshit. That there is no shame in the trauma of growing up - we all go through that.
This is a book that I would have loved to read as a teen, but even reading it in this weird limbo between girlhood and womanhood, it works on so many levels. Nina Faye is not your perfect manic pixie dream girl. She might be the most realistic, most fleshed out female YA protagonist I have ever read. She has positive and negative qualities, and neither category of her qualities are exaggerated. She is fully human, in both her joy and her sadness, her ability to love and her ability to hurt. She has gone through a lot of things that I haven't gone through, but there is also a lot of familiar ground between us. In that sense, she is a great main character. She's not just another faceless protagonist that you can lift out of a story and replace with anyone on the block. This book would not be the book it is if it weren't for Nina, and that is always a vital aspect in a novel.
Elana K. Arnold is no prude, and this book definitely uses the kind of language some term lewd or inappropriate. Answer me this, though: why is mentioning the proper functions of a female body inappropriate? How on Earth is telling teenage girls about their bodies lewd? Reading a book where the female body's functions are discussed so matter-of-factly, so desexualised, is a relief. This is a very important book for teenage girls to read and for Arnold to write it, to put to paper these common experiences, our common denominator, is a brilliant move.
What Girls Are Made Of is a book that reminds me of why young adult literature just hits a gold mine every now and again: when adults, instead of talking down to kids, use their wisdom and experience to create a relatable book for young people. Women need to stick together, and writing this book is the ultimate act of sticking together by Arnold. No woman can know another woman's story through and through, but there is so much we share. This book highlights that. The author's note at the end of the book is brutally honest and adds a lot to the reading experience. Arnold's bravery in sharing her own experiences and motivations behind writing this novel is staggering. This idea she mentions, of girls being expected to be 'sugar and spice and everything nice' in order to fit a narrow societal mold, needs to be destroyed, and books like this are a great stepping stone for that.
There is a part in this book, where a series of Italian sculptures called "The Dissected Graces" are compared to a website where you can design and order a personalised sex doll, that will stick with me for years to come. For Arnold to recognize something like that and tie it to a wider concept of 'chopping up' women and diminishing us just into a sum of our body parts is incredibly poignant. That is just one of the many eye-opening passages in What Girls Are Made Of, but to me, it feels the most hard-hitting, the most authentic. I think this is a book that every girl and woman needs to read. We all have a lot to gain from Nina Faye's story.
February 27, 2020
TRIGGER WARNING: TEEN PREGNANCY, ABORTION
This might sound offensive, but in this life, I do believe that not all parents should be a ‘parents’ in the first place. They can have as many kids as they want, they might also have the privilege to support their kids financially, but they just aren’t capable of being ‘the one parent’, the parents that every kid deserves to have. When she was 14 years-old, she remembered her mother told her that there’s no such thing as unconditional love.
“I could stop loving you at any time.”
And that’s how the story of Nina Faye began.
Holding to her mother’s word, Nina lives her life believing that she must have something to offer, to serve in exchange for herself to be loved. Naively, she thought she found her true happiness in her relationship with Seth. I’m having a hard time to read about their toxic relationship; on how Seth is only using Nina for one thing – sex, on how Nina blamed herself for upsetting Seth to the point that she would do anything as long as her feeling was reciprocated, only to be surprised by a shameful breakup.
While still nursing her broken heart, she found herself pregnant. With all the bad decisions Nina had made in the previous part, my heart was so worried about the decision she was about to take – was it gonna be another bad decision or vice versa? Ugh, it’s really painful for me to get through all the uncomfortable moments that being shoved into me. And I’m heartbroken for Nina.
This is a very straight-forward short story which you can finish in one sitting. But for me, I need more time to process all the ugliness behind the story of this perfectly flawed Nina Faye. I can sense that the author has no intention to conceal it and indeed make it a real painfully-human book. This book also contributes as an informative reading on sex education as it touches about abortion, birth control and almost anything concerning sex. Might still be a taboo talk among certain people but for me they’re vital.
Last but important, this book urges us to look back on how we recognize ourselves as a woman. Do we still put our valuation for how we can serve, satisfy and satiate? Albeit we’ve been bombarded with all kinds of movements that demand us to love ourselves, I know it’s not something easy to be done (me is still learning it). However, I really hope at some point when we find ourselves in the middle of situation or people or feeling that no longer brings good to us, be it physically or emotionally, we’re strong enough to walk away from it.
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This might sound offensive, but in this life, I do believe that not all parents should be a ‘parents’ in the first place. They can have as many kids as they want, they might also have the privilege to support their kids financially, but they just aren’t capable of being ‘the one parent’, the parents that every kid deserves to have. When she was 14 years-old, she remembered her mother told her that there’s no such thing as unconditional love.
“I could stop loving you at any time.”
And that’s how the story of Nina Faye began.
Holding to her mother’s word, Nina lives her life believing that she must have something to offer, to serve in exchange for herself to be loved. Naively, she thought she found her true happiness in her relationship with Seth. I’m having a hard time to read about their toxic relationship; on how Seth is only using Nina for one thing – sex, on how Nina blamed herself for upsetting Seth to the point that she would do anything as long as her feeling was reciprocated, only to be surprised by a shameful breakup.
While still nursing her broken heart, she found herself pregnant. With all the bad decisions Nina had made in the previous part, my heart was so worried about the decision she was about to take – was it gonna be another bad decision or vice versa? Ugh, it’s really painful for me to get through all the uncomfortable moments that being shoved into me. And I’m heartbroken for Nina.
This is a very straight-forward short story which you can finish in one sitting. But for me, I need more time to process all the ugliness behind the story of this perfectly flawed Nina Faye. I can sense that the author has no intention to conceal it and indeed make it a real painfully-human book. This book also contributes as an informative reading on sex education as it touches about abortion, birth control and almost anything concerning sex. Might still be a taboo talk among certain people but for me they’re vital.
Last but important, this book urges us to look back on how we recognize ourselves as a woman. Do we still put our valuation for how we can serve, satisfy and satiate? Albeit we’ve been bombarded with all kinds of movements that demand us to love ourselves, I know it’s not something easy to be done (me is still learning it). However, I really hope at some point when we find ourselves in the middle of situation or people or feeling that no longer brings good to us, be it physically or emotionally, we’re strong enough to walk away from it.
“You don’t owe anyone a slice of your soul. Not your parents. Not your friends. Not your teachers or your lovers or your enemies. And you don’t have to listen to anyone who tells you what girls are made of.
Decide it on your own what your heart is. Protect it. Enjoy it. Share it, if you want. You get this one body and this one hundred years. Love it, love it, please, love it”
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April 24, 2019
What Girls Are Made Of was not easy to read, but I am so glad that I did. It centers on Nina, a teenage girl in an unhealthy relationship, whose skewed view of love was handed down from her inattentive mother. Nina is grappling with her burgeoning sexuality and womanhood while putting in community service hours for a terrible act she committed to a classmate. She moves through life like a puppy or a paper doll, waiting for someone to tell her that she is pretty, that she is loved, that she matters.
This book is messy and ugly and real. I can imagine a lot of readers disliking Nina because she, too, is messy and ugly and real. She makes mistakes that will make you cringe. She doesn't stand up for herself. She is needy and sad and doesn't understand her own feelings. But, then again, that describes most teenage girls, and that is the crux of Arnold's novel. Girls who are expected to be "sugar and spice and everything nice," will eventually crumble. They cannot be swallowed whole, again and again, without turning sour. This is what Nina is coming to terms with: the ugly, sour parts of being a woman, the things that she cannot and should not hide. There is no sugar and spice here, but there is flesh and blood and anger and pain.
Arnold doesn't gloss over a single female experience. She describes in detail things that will make readers mildly to severely uncomfortable: menstruation, sex, masturbation, abortion. The ugly things that we still instinctively want to sweep under the rug are explored in depth. And maybe, this makes them a little less ugly.
I don't know if I would have enjoyed this book as a teenager, if I would have understood that I hated Nina because I was so much like her. But reading her story both broke my heart and made me feel seen. I hope it does the same for others.
"I'm more than any of the parts of me—I am more than my good parts, and more than my bad ones. I am more than my mistakes. I am more than my memories. I will say these words again and again, like an anthem, like a prayer, until I believe them."
This book is messy and ugly and real. I can imagine a lot of readers disliking Nina because she, too, is messy and ugly and real. She makes mistakes that will make you cringe. She doesn't stand up for herself. She is needy and sad and doesn't understand her own feelings. But, then again, that describes most teenage girls, and that is the crux of Arnold's novel. Girls who are expected to be "sugar and spice and everything nice," will eventually crumble. They cannot be swallowed whole, again and again, without turning sour. This is what Nina is coming to terms with: the ugly, sour parts of being a woman, the things that she cannot and should not hide. There is no sugar and spice here, but there is flesh and blood and anger and pain.
Arnold doesn't gloss over a single female experience. She describes in detail things that will make readers mildly to severely uncomfortable: menstruation, sex, masturbation, abortion. The ugly things that we still instinctively want to sweep under the rug are explored in depth. And maybe, this makes them a little less ugly.
I don't know if I would have enjoyed this book as a teenager, if I would have understood that I hated Nina because I was so much like her. But reading her story both broke my heart and made me feel seen. I hope it does the same for others.
"I'm more than any of the parts of me—I am more than my good parts, and more than my bad ones. I am more than my mistakes. I am more than my memories. I will say these words again and again, like an anthem, like a prayer, until I believe them."
October 1, 2017
So I've been thinking about this book for a while now and I still can't untangle my emotions I felt while reading this book. But I do have few things in mind that I need to say. While I liked how author was bold and wrote in detail about periods, abortion etc etc, I think somewhere she went into too much detail that really made me uncomfortable. Like there was scene where . But I no lobger think Nina was unlikable. If anything, she was like many of us teenagers who are entering practicle life and making sense of social issues such as feminism, equality, religion and politics. She made mistakes and sometimes really bg mistakes but in the end she was very relatable.
Despise of all the good things, I don't get the plot (was there any plot?) I don't understand where author was trying to take the story at all.
I'm still conflicted about the rating but I'm settling for 3 stars right now. Might change it later.
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This book, guys. It's so messed up. It's depressing and disturbing and I don't know make of it. I think that I loved and hated it simultaneously.
It's poetic and raw at the same time. It's very bold-the author doesn't shy away from gory details of period, masturbation, sex, abortion and blind love. The narrator is not any strong, level-headed heroine. She's so messed up and made many poor decisions.
I have no idea how to describe my feeling for this book. I appreciate how author boldly displayed the gory details but then I didn't grasp what exactly was the point of book. It made me feel so many emotions and I have absolutely no fucking idea how to seperate them.
Despise of all the good things, I don't get the plot (was there any plot?) I don't understand where author was trying to take the story at all.
I'm still conflicted about the rating but I'm settling for 3 stars right now. Might change it later.
****************
This book, guys. It's so messed up. It's depressing and disturbing and I don't know make of it. I think that I loved and hated it simultaneously.
It's poetic and raw at the same time. It's very bold-the author doesn't shy away from gory details of period, masturbation, sex, abortion and blind love. The narrator is not any strong, level-headed heroine. She's so messed up and made many poor decisions.
I have no idea how to describe my feeling for this book. I appreciate how author boldly displayed the gory details but then I didn't grasp what exactly was the point of book. It made me feel so many emotions and I have absolutely no fucking idea how to seperate them.
May 10, 2017
Grotesquely beautiful.
This is not a book for everyone. Especially the pro-life/religious sect. It is raw and honest and downright depressing at times. Kind of like the life of a teenager.
I liked What Girls Are Made Of for the same reason I didn't: It brought back some turbulent memories. Would I have appreciated reading it 20 years ago when I was around the same age as Nina? I don't know. I don't know if I could have appreciated its wisdom back then. Then again, it may have saved me from some poor decisions.
A worthwhile and important read.
This is not a book for everyone. Especially the pro-life/religious sect. It is raw and honest and downright depressing at times. Kind of like the life of a teenager.
I liked What Girls Are Made Of for the same reason I didn't: It brought back some turbulent memories. Would I have appreciated reading it 20 years ago when I was around the same age as Nina? I don't know. I don't know if I could have appreciated its wisdom back then. Then again, it may have saved me from some poor decisions.
A worthwhile and important read.
December 30, 2017
I felt like this book was more about glorifying the things we try to tell our kids not to do than about what girls are made of. I'm sure it all happens in the high school arena, but there comes a point when I have to say it should never be the norm. Lots of adult situations that are happening with teens. Read between the lines on this review (I have a few younger friends on goodreads so I don't want to be too explicit, unlike the book I just read).
July 21, 2020
I didn't enjoy this book. I can't celebrate the use of women both physically and mentally. Parents beware.
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