From Katie Cotugno and author of Sex and the City Candace Bushnell comes this fierce and feisty exploration of feminism: standing up, speaking out and rewriting the rules.
Don’t be easy. Don’t give it up. Don’t be a prude. Don’t be cold. Don’t put him in the friendzone. Don’t act desperate. Don’t let things go too far. Don’t give him the wrong idea. Don’t blame him for trying. Don’t walk alone at night. But calm down! Don’t worry so much. Smile!
Marin is a smart, driven, popular girl – she's headed for Brown when she graduates and has a brilliant career as a journalist ahead of her. Especially in the eyes of English teacher Mr Beckett. He spends a lot of time around Marin, and she thinks it's harmless . . . until he kisses her.
No one believes Marin when she tells them what happened, so she does the only thing she can: she writes an article called 'Rules for Being a Girl' for the school paper to point out the misogyny and sexism that girls face every day. As things heat up at school and in her personal life, Marin must figure out how to take back the power and rewrite her own rules.
Review: Once I started this book I just couldn't stop. This book has a timely message, one which we all need to hear and yet it is all wrapped up in a storyline which is compelling, funny and often times just so relatable!
I really loved meeting Marin. I like how real she is. She doesn't have everything together, and why should she, she is just a senior in high school? And yet she knows about friendship and loyalty and she thinks she knows the rules. But this is when she discovers the unmistakable fact that the rules are very different fro her than they are for the males in her life. When it comes to uniform rules, when it comes to behaviors which is expected of them and of course when it comes to whether you are believed about someone violating a position of power.
Obviously this book does deal with some tough issues and I feel so sorry for Marin as a character because she is really put through the ringer in the book to show us all how different those societal rules are but she is unfortunately just another statistic that will probably get brushed under the carpet like the many many many cases in schools just like hers. I did find this difficult reading at points but I had to keep reading to find out what the result of the violation against Marin was going to be. Another reason I had to keep reading was because I loved watching how Marin handled the position that she was put in because I feel like she handled it in a way that I could totally identify with.
I finished this book feeling a little bit angry and a little bit sad, especially as a teacher reading about another teacher. Overall though I finished this book feeling very glad that it had been written. We all need to hear Marin's story. We need to know the massive ripple effect one moment that might not seem a lot to one person can have on another person. The emotional fallout and the way that a persons life can change in just one second. I highly recommend this book and I really hope more people are encouraged to speak up because of reading it.
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