GirlForce: A Girl's Guide to the Body and Soul

This book is called "A Girl's Guide to the Body and Soul". I really like that. I think all women remember those tough teenage years when we struggled with the changes of our bodies, dealing with hormones, moods, boys, school and so many other confusing and difficult things. I would've loved to have something that helped me think that I wasn't crazy :) Nikki Goldstein has put together a great guide for teens and she has wonderful information on one of her websites for the mothers of teen girls. I have a feeling my mother would've appreciated that information when I was a teen. We were both at a loss about how to deal with so many things that happened during those years. This is the table of contents to give you an idea of what Goldstein covers in this book - Chapter One - Who Are You? Chapter Two - Create Your Own GirlForce Body Type Balancing Plan Chapter Three - Eat Right for Your Body Type Chapter Four - DIY Body Blast Chapter Five - Celebrate Your Unique Beauty Chapter Six - The Lowdown on Stress Chapter Seven - Get In Touch With Your Inner Self Chapter Eight - Talking about Relationships Chapter Nine - Get it Together Chapter Ten - Your GirlForce Questions Answered I couldn't find a topic that isn't covered in this book. In addition to the invaluable information that helps teen girls - this book is gorgeous. The pages are all colorful, the illustrations are wonderful and you will simply love the appearance. There are various quizzes in the book to help teen girls determine their body type, and much more. Once you find your type -- there is a wealth of information to help understand many other elements of your life. I think any teen girl, any mother of a teen girl, any pre teen and any other family or friend who supports a teen or pre teen needs to read this book. In June we did a virtual blog tour for GirlForce and we offered all blog hosts a wealth of information to post on their blogs. If you would like to take a peek inside this book, visit this summary page and you can take a look at a big list of ideas - [...]

What an adorable book, I would have gone nuts for this when I was age 11-15, and would of read it cover to cover. It's full of quizzes based on self-discovery and encourages a healthy body, mind, and soul outlook. It's based on the ancient Indian practice of Ayurveda. The quizzes are based on finding what your body and mind "type" is out of three Ayurvedic elements: Earth, Fire, and Air. Fire girls are feisty! Earth girls are serene, and air girls are unpredictable. These are just a couple examples of what the book goes into. I'm very surprised at how much depth there is to these quizzes. It even notes for each "type" what her skin type would be, hair type, body type, and even recommends dietary advice. Not the kind of diet advice that would have a teen obsessing, the main advice given throughout the book is to love thy self. But it says fire girls should eat less of, say, pickles because they make the skin and breath sour... and more of kidney beans (just to name two). It gives healthy skin advice per Ayurvedic "type" as well, and this could be a wellspring of hope to acne suffering teens. There is information and a quiz on letting go of stress. It even gives written instructions for meditation and some visualization exercises. It's a great introduction into the fascinating history of Ayurveda, and it does not infringe on currently existing religious or spiritual beliefs. The models are cute and healthy looking, but not unnaturally so. This book really stresses that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to look at certain things, regardless of what "type" the quizzes say you fall into. It's somewhat hard to explain this book due to the impressive detail. Of course, I knew very little on Ayurveda to begin with, but most of us are probably in that category. I'd recommend this book for your seemingly self-obsessed teen or pre-teen, or even for yourself just for fun!

Being that this book is for teenaged girls, I didn't think I'd get terribly much out of it and I'd loan it to our neighbor's daughter who is 14. I took the quiz that comes at the very beginning to determine my element, which ended up being "Earth." The descriptions for my element type were SPOT ON descriptions of myself both as a teenager and even in adulthood! The advice and recommendations for my type would have been most helpful had I known about them earlier on in adolescence. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It reads much like a teen magazine would: it's brightly colored with lots of pictures of teen girls with various body types and "looks." My neighbor and her daughter also took the quiz and they were "air" and "fire" respectively. Just as it was spot on with me, the descriptions for them were right on target. They really enjoyed the quiz, descriptions, and recommendations as much as I did. It's one of those types of quizes that you can read out loud to each other, much like you would in a teen magazine. I felt so young again and had fun reading it with them! I particularly enjoyed the advice on what to eat and what yoga poses suit your element type the best. Everything made total sense and I'm glad a book like this exists. I will certainly keep this book for when my two younger daughters become teenagers as I'm sure it will help me with them as it will help them know themselves better. My only complaint about this book is that the binding came undone during the first hour of use and I did not break the spine or bend the pages backwards. So the book's contents and its cover are two separate pieces, which is a shame.

My 10 year old daughter has been enjoying this book for a few weeks now. All I keep hearing is: It's sooo true Mom!

As a dad, I was very skeptical of this book, thinking it would be another silly system of wannabe yoga or new age, air-filled mysticism. But after seeing how my daughter interacted with this book (and how it sparked conversations about self-concept, appearance vs. being comfortable with one's body, and how we use type-models as a springboard for understanding who we are), I appreciate Nikki Goldstein's attempt to provide a positive book for girl's empowering themselves (as cliché and camp as "empowerment" might sound now). I also appreciate his as a teacher who can see his students (my students are at-risk students who have had their self-esteem either crushed or have hurt it themselves through repetitively making bad decisions) using this as a self-awareness exercise. Her book is based on a philosophy of India (that's been around for centuries, okay, it's not exactly anything new), Ayurvedic medicine. What's new is that Goldstein does for philosophy and spirituality (as dumb as this might sound) what Danica McKellar does for mathematics in Math Doesn't Suck: she makes it understandable, cool, and puts celebrating the self, exercising, making healthy food choices, beauty tips, etc., in a context that is both worthy and exciting for preteens and teens. (This might be neat for younger girls who want to see what their older sisters are into, but I don't see this working for college age young women, necessarily. But I'm a nearly-40 dad who likes hunting, hot chips - yeah, "chips" NOT "chicks," okay, and Larry the Cable Guy; what do I know?) This is the first self-help book I would recommend for a teen audience.