It’s fascinating, and maddening, and disheartening, but very good, especially if you lived through girl-on-girl bullying yourself (which, who didn’t).   Some of Simmons’s terminology is a little new-agey for my taste, but that’s a minor quibble; so much of what she says about the socialization of girls is right on, and the way that we absorb that double standard from such a young age.   God knows I see it on The Vine all the time — young women just totally unwilling to make their feelings heard because they don’t think they’re supposed to.   Great book, not least because of how grateful it made me that seventh grade is over and I never have to go back.   (6/8/04)

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