I borrowed this book off my mother's bookshelf twelve or thirteen years ago when I was just entering adolescence myself. My mother never got it back. The book is ostensibly a parenting-oriented psychology text, but I think it was likely far more useful to me as a girl on the cusp of the age range discussed in the book than it would have been in the hands of my mother.

Young as I was, this was the first explicitly feminist text I had ever been exposed to, and for the first time in my life it was able to give me a framework for understanding and a means of describing and recognizing the tensions and problems I was beginning to be able to detect in the environment around me and in the girls who were my friends and classmates. It didn't really matter to me that the girls whose stories were featured in the book were by and large far more troubled than myself or any of the adolescents I knew; I could still relate to the angst, insecurities, and general mien shown in their stories. To a degree, both at the time and still today, I felt that having a broader and more holistic understanding of what made things go wrong for so many girls inoculated me against many of these same problems, and allowed me to adopt more effective coping strategies for the drama that inevitably comes with simply being a young teen, and especially with being a young teenage girl.

The text in Reviving Ophelia is fairly simple, straightforward, and concisely described. For all that it's firmly grounded in feminist theory and psychotherapeutic practice, it's neither overly academic nor bogged down in complex theoretical nuance. It is certainly valuable reference reading for parents of preadolescent girls to prepare them for what their daughters may soon be subject to, but I think it can just as effectively (if not more so) be treated as an invaluable toolkit for young girls themselves who may already be confused by the changes thrown at them by biology and their social group, as a means of clarifying and educating them about the hazards of youth in a superficial society. ( )

girls in the '90s had it rough according to mary pipher. the world was so different from her '50s childhood era where girls/women have to learn to lead a restricted life in order to be safe b/c we live in a junk culture w/junk values that demeans women. she feels that we need to change our institutions and our cultures so that females aren't battered, raped and demeaned and where males don't feel the need to perpetrate such behaviors. if you're a parent or think you'll ever be one, no matter if you have a son or daughter, i think "reviving ophelia" is worth reading for ideas about how to parent an adolescent, male or female, in the best way possible for a culture that has values not in the best interest of people. ( )

Psychological book on young adolescent girls. ( )

This book is crucial. I really believe that all parents living in the culture Reviving Ophelia talks about should read it well before their child becomes an adolescent.

I would love a second edition of this, with an introduction by Pipher addressing what is be different nearly 15 years after the original publication, and what (I'm guessing, most of it) is the same.

I think what I respect most in this book is Pipher's repeated affirmation that if you're angry or sad or upset, the problem may well not be with you--it may be with the world that you live in, and you are acting legitimately in calling attention to this. The answer isn't simply to adjust your attitude and perceptions so that you can fit comfortably into the world as it is; it's to find constructive and active ways to address the problems you see while learning to take charge of how the problems you can't fix make you feel. This attitude emerges everywhere from the book's main thesis (it's not that adolescent girls are innately troublesome; it's that they aren't prepared or supported as they emerge into a poisonous culture) to how Pipher helped individual girls' frustration by enabling them to volunteer at homeless shelters or encouraging their political activism.

Reading the other reviews, however, I think mollishka's makes an important point when she says that this book can give the impression that all of an adolescent girl's psychological problems must be traced to the external factors Pipher outlines, and that this can be dangerously misleading.

This book is a classic and there should not be a parent with a boy or a girl entering middle school that should not have this on their bookshelf after a careful reading. This book is what inspired me to homeschool my own daughters and allowed me to place back into context what I went through as a young lady. Remember though that this book was writtenn originally several years ago, and the behaviors it describes have gotten much worse for many young girls. If you get one message from this book, it's that our girls are dealing with bullying and sexual harassment not just once in awhile, but often on a literally daily basis.

It is not OK to parent with our heads in the sand, or for us to assume taht things have gotten better than when we went to school. Even if you homeschool, you must be aware of what this type of behavior looks like so you can discuss it with your daughter and perhaps even more importantly, your sons. Discussions must occur around why this impairs learning, self-image and harms the development of human potential. Don't be afraid to read this book. Be afraid NOT to read this book. ( )