Being a Girl by Hayley Long

An exciting morning for this blogger today as I awoke to the delightful sound of books being delivered to my doorstep. Thanks a heap to Hot Key Books and The Five Mile Press for adding me to the reading list for their monthly books. Not only is being a book blogger a wonderful experience but it means that I get real, addressed-only-to-me, mail! It's more exciting than it sounds.

So my first book to review is Being a Girl by Hayley Long.

I read this non-fiction beauty in under an hour cover to cover. Why you ask? Because it was just so lovely! Not only is Long able to connect with her readers, teenagers, but she is able to grasp the appropriate humor and feeling that I have found is quite unique.

Being a Girl is a ten chapter non-fiction novel about, well, being a girl and the hardships of puberty. What was superb about it was that not only was it able to communicate these ideas with humor but the heavy stuff was not taken as lightly and that supplied a realistic feel to the information.

The strength of this story: it's comedy. Not often do I find myself so taken with a book that it makes me laugh out loud and this one did. Funnily enough, when the author writes that you should say something out loud to yourself, you actually do it. No matter how weird the looks are that you get from the people on the bus, or in the library, or your dog.

Long covered many serious and awkward topics from bullying to sex and I found that I could relate to her advice and reasoning. It's obvious that she has a unique understanding into the teen mind mixed with the maturity that comes from someone who has experienced the changes girls go through first-hand.

The only nit I will pick about it though was that sometimes the advice didn't seem as fitting or realistic as it could've been. For example; applying confidence to a situation does not solve it. It makes it better, sure, but it's not the key to life's problems. In that area only, the book lost some realism points.

Aside from that, Being a Girl was an effortless and energetic book that made me smile on multiple occasions. If you're a struggling teen girl out there who needs to know what the hell is happening inside her body and outside of it then this is the book for you. A worthwhile read for all girls, I guarantee.