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Girlhood
- Narrated by: Melissa Febos
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Women
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Publisher's Summary
Bloomsbury presents Girlhood by Melissa Febos, read by Melissa Febos.
A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.
In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.
When her body began to change at 11 years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defences she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritise their personal safety, happiness or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.
Blending investigative reporting, memoir and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos’s characteristic precision, lyricism and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, towards a chosen self.
Critic Reviews
"Girlhood is an exquisite collection. In lapidary, lucid prose, Melissa Febos dissects the traumas, terrors and pleasures of the fraught passage from girl to woman. Febos’ insight is devastating, the examinations of her world - from the female body, queerness, consent, slut-shaming and intimacy - are rigorous and compassionate. This is a book for mothers, daughters and our deepest selves, a true light in the dark." (Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter)
"In this book, Febos proves herself to be one of the great documenters of the terrible and exquisite depths of girlhood. Here, that terrible and beautiful aeon is dissected, sung over, explored like ancient ruins. These essays are moss and iron - hard and beautiful - and struck through with Febos’ signature brilliance and power and grace. An essential, heartbreaking project." (Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties)
"Melissa Febos is part poet, part theorist and all writer. In this lyrical, searching, profound and personal collection, Febos examines childhood, femaleness and love in its many forms with a sensuous ferocity that is all her own." (Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply and Female Chauvinist Pigs)
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What listeners say about Girlhood
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Niurka Maldonado
- 04-02-21
Great read, audio needs editing
The first hour or so is the book was fine but as it progressed there were more and more sound errors and different sections repeated. The essays are excellent, though. I would skip the audiobook and purchase a printed copy.
8 people found this helpful
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- St Clair
- 06-27-21
Spot on for many of us
Provocative. A salve for other academics with histories. (I enjoy the author’s narration also. It’s always good to hear the author read)
2 people found this helpful
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- carissa
- 04-20-21
Great Book but Audio is Choppy
I really enjoyed listening to this book. It always is nice listening to the author read it because I can get more of a sense of what they meant when they wrote it. I did have to stop quite often because much of it does hit deep wounds for those whom identify as female. We all have experienced much of what she speaks about in this book, so personally, I needed time away to process and self-reflect on what the words mean in my life and process what wounds I still have left unhealed that the book opens up. Melissa gives voice to feelings many women are unable to give voice to, like "empty consent,"
The audio was very choppy in the first few chapters. I almost stopped the book altogether and returned it because it was so bad with the repeats and weird cut-offs. After about Chapter 7 or 8 it stopped being choppy.
2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 04-12-21
Not produced
Whoever produced this audio book clearly did not listen back / edit before putting this up. You can hear when the narrator fumbles over her words and then restarts the sentence throughout the audio book. Very frustrating to listen to, couldn’t get through it.
2 people found this helpful
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- Michael Odlyzko
- 03-08-22
Gut punchy memoir and polemic
I was pretty gripped by one of these essays when adapted for NYT, the whole book is engaging too but really also more dense, heart wrenching, and polemical than that. Lots of unpalatable but worthwhile food for thought as a politically/culturally ambivalent, religious, straight, white dad. Always appreciate hearing an author read and speak for themselves as here.
1 person found this helpful
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- Blair
- 04-28-22
Introspective
Would recommend! A friend of mine recommended this to me after reading it in a writing class. I picked it up and didn't turn it off for almost four hours. There was so much to digest, relating my own life experiences to those of the book.
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- pat
- 04-23-22
Enlightening
I heard Melissa Febos interviewed on NPR & was so impressed with her awareness of how difficult it is to come into relationship with our own body. Her sensitivity to the human psyche, especially related to our sexuality, body, and the big picture of the world we live in related to all the above are difficult to have awareness about much less to be able to bring light and understanding to. Thank you for helping me as a man understand better my own self body hatred and also my behavior sexually. I hope to be much more aware of my wife’s needs and listen and encourage her more to know herself, and be my guide.
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- Rose City B
- 03-30-22
Compelling
She's been through it. Worth a listen, for sure. Could have trimmed the essays in a few places.
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- C. J. Smith
- 09-05-21
Thoughtful essays on growing up
Febos' narratives about becoming self aware are transformative and loving. The writing is exquisite. I'll definitely listen/read again!