The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence

I intitially picked up this book out of professional interest. As an advocate for women's rights and a student of leadership development, I was interested in learning from Rachel's experience working with young women at the Girl's Leadership Institute. What I didn't expect was the degree of self-reflection this book provoked. How had my lovely, graceful, care-taking mother been raised in the 40s and 50s? What lessons did I learn as a girl about appropriate behavior and having -- much less sharing -- needs? How do I see these trends play out with women in the workplace? How many young women have I coached to know their own value as they negotiated for a raise, promotion, or new job? How will I teach - or not teach - these lessons to my own children? On the last point, the book offers a practical guide for parents (and teachers and coaches and all adults who interact with girls). With Rachel's help -- and the help of all the mothers and daughters who shared their stories in this book so that we might learn from their experience -- we can raise a generation of authentic girls who truly know and like themselves. Jackie Payne

Since reading this book, I have recommended it to everyone I know-and certainly everyone I know who has ever been a girl or is raising girls. The book is smart, insightful, funny, helpful, savvy and most importantly tells the truth about girl's lives. This book makes a critically important contribution to our understanding of adolescent girls-and what holds girls back from reaching their full potential. Even better, Rachel Simmons offers practical solutions to help girl's (and those who love them) be their true authentic selves. I am so grateful this book exists. Thank you Rachel Simmons!

In her delightfully anticipated new book, The Curse of the Good Girl, Rachel Simmons strikes the precipitous balance between empathizing with the plight of the adolescent Good Girl, whilst simultaneously understanding the challenge of the adults who must navigate the stormy adolescent waters with their daughters. It is clear in her writing that Rachel's gift is in her capacity to truly KNOW the experience of the girls to whom she has dedicated her career, and to make sense of it in a way which allows her to respond with startling accuracy to the challenges facing today's teen. She invites parents and educators to join in her in this knowing, and so to begin to respond sensitively to the responsibility they have as caregivers. This book has the potential to create an inter-generational bridge, providing a framework for communication between adults and adolescents, and in so doing allowing both to explore their authentic selves with courage and confidence. Rachel's style is compellingly personal; in reading this book I felt that she was in conversation with me, speaking both to the adult in me and to the adolescent girl who remains so alive in memory. Her style is wonderfully readable; she writes with poignant humour, intellect and deep insight. The Curse of the Good Girl will be a companion to all adults who live and work with girls. Rachel's reputation as Girl Whisperer is sustained.

This book is a MUST for any woman to read! A truly intelligent book, without the usual bromides. It is thought provoking and worth reading several times. Society provides confusing messages to girls. As young children girls they are fed fairy tales that teach complance and modesty. Then they are thrust into the working world as young adults that suddenly demands competence, confidence and assertiveness. It's a bit like the "double-bind" psychologists describe of contradictory messages. In a sense girls are forced to walk around with a big chunk of kryptonite that drains them of all power. (like Superman, remember?) This books is a MUST for teachers and parents. It's about girls finding their "truth", the true voice , their life guide. This is a VITAL SUBJECT.

If you were a girl, are a girl, or have a girl, this is a book for you. In an important book, the author of Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons puts her finger on the social and emotional dynamics that work against girls reaching their full potential, as achievers and as human beings. The exercises in the second part of the book are spot on, and I wish every mother in America would read the chapter directed to mothers.