Nonfiction

The Girl's Guide to Conquering Life by Erica and Jonathan Catherman

Wednesday, June 13, 2018


Genre: Youth-Nonfiction

Rating: Three out of five hearts ♥♥♥

Also available: The Girl's Guide to Conquering Middle School, The Manual to Manhood, The Manual to Middle School

Growing up presents you with so many new experiences, challenges and difficulties to sort through, The Girl's Guide to Life wants to help you along. Inside, you'll find instructions on many things, from how to throw a football to how to create a personal budget. And all the topics, from 'Guys & Dating' to 'Work & Ethics', are categorized so as to be found easily. 

My Review: 

I've always wanted a how-to guide on essential stuff like this. On growing up and getting older, I feel like Robin Hood BBC's character Much when I say, "There's so much to remember!" because it's true. This stage of life, from ages 13 to adulthood, can be so confusing, challenging, and hard. There are so many essential things to do and figure out, and this book does help you along with some of that. I think it may be especially helpful for those girls out there who maybe don't have parents to help them learn some of the stuff that's contained in this how-to guide, or maybe who do have parents but have conflicting schedules. 

Some of my favorite how-to's were "how to behave during a police stop", "how to interview for a job" (since I had that one coming up in the near future shortly after I received the book) and the section on tools and fix-it, since I want to know some of these things for my own home someday. Mr. and Mrs. Catherman's instructions were clearly written and will, I think, be useful for me. I also liked the illustrations. At the beginning of each how-to, there is an illustration of a girl doing whatever it is you're about to learn. As one who likes to draw and is very visual, I always appreciate it whenever the illustrations are realistic and well-drawn, and I was admiring the way the girls and their different activities were portrayed (this may make no difference to you in whether or not you like a book, but how something looks visually is very important to me personally). Illustrations, if done well, can also help make a book more interesting, and I think these did their job well.  

However, all that being said, I felt as if there were more skills I would have liked to have learned about, and felt that some in the book were unnecessary. The book was targeted toward teens, and as such, I felt that instructions such as how to make a bed, wash your hands, wash your hair, etc. were unnecessary. I don't know about all the teens out there, but I've known how to do those things since I was in grade school, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of those out there have too. I think it would have been useful for some teens to have read about childcare, or some other such helpful things as that. If the unnecessary how-to's had been omitted, there could have been room for more, perhaps useful, things. I'm not saying this book won't be helpful for different people, I just think it could have been more helpful, more informative, if done a bit differently. During a lot of the book I felt as if I already knew a lot of what I was reading- the information was perhaps more appropriate for a middleschooler or young teen, although I did find some things (as I mentioned above) that seemed age-appropriate for a young adult instead. And also, if you're a conservative, you may not appreciate the 'girl power' stance that the authors seem to take. 

So personally, I kind of have mixed feelings about this book. While some of the content may be helpful for me, it wasn't quite as nice as I was expecting.


Note: I got this book from Revell in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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