Please Stop Laughing at Us... One Survivor's Extraordinary Quest to Prevent School Bullying

by Jodee Blanco

A sequel to The New York Times bestselling memoir, Please Stop Laughing at Me¸ this groundbreaking investigation walks down the hallways of today’s schools to find realistic solutions to the serious problem of bullying. Trusted advice on how educators, parents, and caregivers can prevent school bullying is weaved throughout the author’s own survival story as well as narratives from other victims of intimidation. Exposing weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the American educational system, this vital social critique shows how to help both bullies and victims change for the better, why traditional punishment is counter-productive, how to inspire compassion in the classroom, and how to discipline a child in ways that benefit self-esteem.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Autobiography, Biography, Memoir

443 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 9, 2008

About the author

Founder and CEO of The Blanco Group.

Survivor, expert and activist Jodee Blanco is one of the country’s pre-eminent voices on the subject of school bullying.

The author of The New York Times bestseller, "Please Stop Laughing At Me . . . One Woman’s Inspirational Story."

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is the sequel to "Please Stop Laughing At Me." As compared to "Please Stop Laughing At Me", I really didn't enjoy this book. It seemed like the author went on and on repeating the same idea and after a while is seems a little whiney. It has a good message but it can be very long and boring. I would suggest reading the first book.

[Kelsey Samples · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please Stop Laughing at Us is the best book I have ever laid my hands on.. I realize that this book could truly change the lives and lifestyles of people. It is grouped in the correct category being a "self help" book but even that is an understatement in the case of this book. I truly hope that teenagers, adults, survivors and parents alike will get an opportunity to read this influencing self help book. I'm grateful I did.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important read for all

This is an amazing book in its truth and emotion. As an adult survivor of peer abuse I found Jodee's books not just heartbreakingly true but informative to everyone on this sad rollercoaster. She was able to put into words what all bullied victims feel and give positive narrative to ways of avoiding the bully if it's possible. I would love to have my students and more importantly their parents hear her speak.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book, not the audio.

This book was on the nonfiction display at the library and published this year. I have been doing research on bullying to help me in the classroom and with my own daughter and found it interesting. She wrote a memoir before this that I want to go get now. I found a lot of useful things in this book that I will be able to mill over and utilize to help children.

Bullied throughout middle and high school, Blanco gained her insights through personal experience and reflection. This is written in a narrative form resulting in it reading like a second memoir. The most helpful information comes toward the end of the book. She makes honest assertions and sprinkles her feelings in the book creating a novel feel.

I love how Blanco looks back into her history to expand her workshops and seminars and really figure out how to help others help children. In addition, she comes up with labels to help understand and clarify what is really going on. Being a mom, an educator, but most of all a child that experienced bullying often, I know Blanco remains accurate on her description of what is going on and how schools fail to deal with the problem.

At the same time, sometimes she comes across condescending toward some of the very same teachers who listen to and appreciate her message. Almost like she shouting "dah" to them for not knowing how to help these bullied children.
Also, I do not agree with her perceptions of NCLB and teachers unions.

Despite those few dissension, there such valuable info in her into the social lives of bullies and the bullied and some practical advice for those that love them that I think anyone that works with children would benefit by reading it.

[Nikki DeVaux · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had read the author's first book and loved it, so I was excited to read this one. While I think the message is good, she was all over the place and the book had a very "woe is me" feel to it. The book could have easily been condensed to half the length. She is very repetitive and I often found myself skimming the chapters because she literally had just said the same thing in the chapter beforehand, just worded it differently. The author is constantly talking about flashbacks and panic attacks as she hangs out with her new friends - and while I can recognize and appreciate how scary it can be - it seemed way over the top and like she was fishing for sympathy. She was very whiny and when she wasn't describing how much of a toll her JOB as a bully activist took on her she was writing about her crush on her boyfriend, which caused a majority of the book to feel like I was reading a whiny 12-year old's diary. I struggled to finish it and found myself very disappointed with the approach she took - I had hoped that she would divulge more into the struggles she came across from meeting other kids who were bullied in her talks, but it all came back to her.

[Elise R · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just, ugh. I didn't read the first book, but now I have no interest in doing so. The author just sounded really self-important and I found myself rolling my eyes through most of the text. I thought her message of "You too can be BFFLs with the people who bullied you in high school!" was infuriating. If the book helps someone, I can't really knock it, but I read this book with a "bitch, please" face the entire time.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did a presentation on school bullying for class and read this book. I believe this woman is making a difference in the atmospheres of the schools she visits.

[Jessica Busse · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had read the author's previous book, and thought it was okay. The writing style wasn't my favorite, but I thought she had important stories to tell. I bought both books at the same time, but the sequel sat on my bookshelf for many years. I should have just left it there until I decided to get rid of it. I have a lot of issues with this book. The first is the believability. Other reviewers have cited a lot of reasons to doubt some of the author's stories, but one in particular stands out to me. She talks about a lot of people at her high school reunion anticipating the publication of her book. How did they even know she was writing a book? She said she had just turned in her manuscript to the publisher, and it wasn't even a big publishing house. How could there possibly be buzz about a book written by a first time author that was being published by a small publishing house? That just doesn't make sense. Also, why would all of these people who clearly hated her in school, who even told her so to her face, suddenly be all happy for her to be publishing a book about her experiences? It just doesn't make sense. Either things weren't as bad as she said they were or there was some kind of mass amnesia among her classmates.
Beyond the believability, I also had a problem with the allusions to future events. It was constant. "Little did I know..." "I could never have anticipated that..." "I would soon learn that..." Just spit it out or don't mention it. Having these constant anticipatory phrases was really annoying because it was impossible to know how many chapters you'd have to read through before you would finally found out what she was talking about.
I admit that I only thoroughly read about 1/3 of the book because the repetitiveness was driving me crazy. Every chapter consisted of her traveling to another school, detailing another discussion, and coming to the conclusion that she alone had magically saved the lives of all of the children in that school. Her self-importance and arrogance along with her statements of self-doubt were dizzying. She has this idea in her head that she alone can save the youth of America from bullying, but she's a bully herself. She makes constant snap judgements about people she encounters. She described a student at her first book signing by her hair and clothes, but also had to throw in that she was "morbidly obese'. At an early school talk, she observes a group of cheerleaders talking near "a painfully thin girl with long, unfashionable hair". She doesn't even know these kids, and she's openly passing judgement on them and deciding for herself why she thinks they're getting bullied, almost as if she believes they deserve it because of their appearances. She does the same with adults, commenting on their attire, as if that has any bearing on who they are as people. It is very clear that the author has her own personal prejudices that she can't move past, which makes it hard to believe that she can truly be an effective advocate.
I started the book planning to read the whole thing, but ended up only skimming most of it, mostly to confirm to myself that the author never really learned any lessons for herself from her experiences. She only seems to have developed an inflated sense of self-importance. If schools really want to find someone to help them solve problems with bullies, I really hope they look elsewhere.

[Scott Rees · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this book, the author succeeds where she came up short in her previous effort - offering thoughts and solutions about how to handle bullying situations. She shares lessons and wisdom gained from her personal story and the stories of others she encountered as she traveled to schools across the country. I appreciated her approach of mediation that draws from a place of compassion and empathy, as well as the message of "there's nothing wrong with you," and encouraging students to stand up for their struggling peers and more. Victims, parents, educators and survivors alike should find this helpful reading.

[Piazzauke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly gut wrenching to read at times for the brutality of kids - but very insightful.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in 2008.
Follow up to Please Stop Laughing at Me.

[Sea Serpent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this woman is doing great work, judging by the way she described it in this book. I really liked her ideas on what teachers, parents, and school authorities can do to stop bullying.

But I find it really sad that she still wanted to be liked and accepted by her bullies, long after she graduated from high school. It's nice that she's friends with most of them now since that was what she wanted (though I can't understand why), and even married one of her ex-classmates; though it didn't work out. But she never seemed to have gotten over her desperate pandering to them.

I was bullied much like she was. I was shy, sensitive, socially awkward, too individualistic, couldn't fit into any cliques; all of which made me an easy target. But I eventually learned that it DOESN'T MATTER what any bullies think of you. Unlike her, I cannot take what any bully thinks of me or says about me seriously at all.

I guess I was different in that for me, the worst thing about being bullied wasn't so much the mean kids' low opinion of me as it was that I was forced to be around them all the time when I was in school. My feeling is if they still want to bad-mouth me, they can indulge in that masturbation all they want. As long as they're out of my life, that's all I care about.

Kids should be encouraged to like who they are. Sucking up to former bullies and begging them to like you is not the way to do it.

[Leigh Kimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've found yet about the problem of school bullying and real solutions for doing it instead of useless hleppy advice that treats bullying as a rite of passage. A lot of people still have the idea that bullies are like Ace Quigley in Robert A. Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel -- a big, loutish brute whose obnoxious behavior is easy to identify as transgressive. Instead, bullying is often done by a crowd, and involves circles of complicity to ensure that nobody breaks ranks and sides with the excluded child. As a result, adult authorities don't see it as a problem with the bullies, but a problem with the victim, who needs to "stop whining" and bear up. Worse, a lot of adult authority figures see this sort of bullying as legitimate peer pressure, a message of UR RONG to the victim, and the victim needs to change to stop being RONG.

Ms. Blanco shows us that we need to stop looking at individual incidents of bullying as if they were isolated and unique, but recognize how they fit into a pattern of exclusion in which the victim is reduced to a social atom, surrounded by hostile faces. Only then can we break down the circles of complicity that keep the kids who are uncomfortable with bullying from breaking ranks and following the promptings of their consciences.

[Karen & Gerard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Jodee Blanco's second book about how she recovered from all the bullying she endured all through school and went to talk at schools around the country to help other kids who were being bullied and help the bullies to stop. It also addresses parents and teachers.

Her advice includes telling the bullied kids to stand up for themselves in a nonviolent way, find friends outside of school even if it means going outside of their school district. Parents should not just send kid for counseling but go with them. Parents need to support their kids and let the kids talk about their problems. Try to come up with an action together that will help the situation. This book has a great message and offers practical help to both the bullied kids and their parents and teachers.

It tells how the kids who used to pick on her in school are now her friends and she even married the most popular guy in school that all the girls liked which gives much hope to those going through the same thing. Great book! I recommend this book for all teachers and anyone being bullied.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Read quickly it was so good. So true the bullies never remember the bullying but the victim never forgets. I could relate to everything in this book. Same things happened to me or my kids. I can remember being driven to high school because if how mean the kids were on the bus. I remember going to a party in 8th grade and calling my mom to get picked up I was so miserable only person without a date. My older brother picked me up and as soon as I saw my mom when I got home I just cried. I can also remember wishing to die so I wouldn't have to deal with the teasing anymore. The pain would go away if I was dead. I didn't want to commit suicide I just didn't want to live like that anymore. Wish I had the money to buy a bunch of these books and give them to the kids that bully my kids so they don't have to go through this again.

[Clare Savage · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I think this book is important to read for educators and parents to understand their children and the relationships they are engaged in. I thought the author being best friends with her previous aggressors, was noble and a testament to forgiveness. That being said, I felt like the authors tone was whiny and it took forever for her to realize this work is not easy. Kids/teens lives now have more access to the world than we ever did and many more adult experiences. I felt like she was naive to this, and her own issues. Although, she says she is fine now, I wonder how often her flashbacks cripple her from being a participant in her marriage.

[Deb · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. It has an important message and some good information and suggestions. However the book was very repetitive and could easily have been only 1/2 the length. I listened to the audiobook and it came across as too whiney and desperate. I understand the author's passion and desperation to get her message across. However, that combined with the length and repetition in the book made me start feeling annoyed instead of sympathetic. Overall a disappointment as I feel it could have been a much better book.
I do think the book has value. Perhaps if I had read the print version and been able to skim through sections I would be able to give it 2-3 stars.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir tells the story of how Jodee Blanco's life changed after writing her memoir about being bullied in school. She describes how her former classmates who once bullied her reacted to it. The response to her book from teenagers all over the country led her to develop an anti-bullying program for students, teachers, and parents. She talks about how doing these programs affected her.

It was an interesting biography--not as powerful as her previous book, Please Stop Laughing at Me--: One Woman's Inspirational Story, but well worth the time.

I recommend this book to all those who have read her first book and want to learn more about her life afterward.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yikes...probably like everyone else, who knew what bullying could do. I didnt realize how tramatizing it could be and how I have a hand in promoting it. My son gets bullied and now, I know how to deal with it.

This is a sequel to her first book, but very glad I just read this one. This book has more to offer on how to deal with and stop bullying. Its much more than her experiences, this explains and helps those who dont understand, and those who do.

[Cathy Rosenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book taught me about human decency and how to empower your child to step up and do the right thing.
Teasing and bullying is all around us and there are skills that we need to know to get through.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and moving tale of a formerly-bullied woman who has turned into a youth advocate and travels the states speaking out against bullying.

Made me cry more than once. Not for the faint of heart.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was non-fiction, so I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it so much. It opened my eyes to such horrible bullying that goes on nowadays. I really recommend this book, also because the author was so open about everything. It was awesome!!

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful sequel to Please Stop Laughing At Me. This is the continuation of Jodee's memoir and chronicles her anti-bullying movement, changes in her personal life and insights she gained in the journey.

[Rosalius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was very insightful. Blanco's ideas about the bullied and the bullies are spot-on. I really want to read Please Stop Laughing at Me... now because the flashbacks in this book were heart wrenching.

[Danielle Rocke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought I would love this book as I listened to some of lectures but while I agree with what she wrote it's like looking for gems in swamp. You have to mire through so much to get anything from it. Not a great read at all.

[Golden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has to be read after the first boook "please stop laughing at me" because you wouldnt really understand everything fully beacause 75% of the time she is referring back to the first book. Just read both books in order, please!!!! for your sake!

[Alan Eisenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really go into too much about bullying, but more about Ms. Blanco's work traveling the country talking about bullying. Hoped it would look deeper into the issue of bullying and how it affects others.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly could not put this book down, just like Jodee's last book. Love it!

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as the first book but provides information on how to deal with bullies from different perspectives. I will definitely be able to use some of these ideas in my classroom.

[Kristin Bateman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not as good as the first one, and I felt it was more "me, me, me" than anything else. : (