This book should be on everyone's read list. In our current culture it's very important to understand the issues of gender imbalance and assault. Though fiction, this is very impactful.

Until almost the very end, this book was a three star for me. I just have to be honest and say that. I knew the message that was being sent, I just wasn't receiving it in the way I expected. However, it wasn't until I looked at the book as a whole that I realized how much I loved it. What Girls Are Made Of is biting in its grip, so realistic that you become a part of the story. I think this particular book is ideally read by its intended teen audience. Teens need to know they are not alone, that its okay to be vulnerable even when you're tough. All in all, a great read even if it didn't go the way I expected. Sometimes, the best books sneak up on you that way.

*spoilers ahead*



Trigger Warning: Sex, Teenage Pregnancy, Abortion



Before I share my thoughts, I just want to say that I DO really love the cover and the title of this book. They’re more than enough to convince me to grab this one immediately. They made quite a good job on making me be intrigued right from the very first time I saw it. The title and the cover is what really caught me here because some of you guys know that I don’t usually read synopsis.



“As long as there have been women,” Mom told me, “there have been ways to punish them for being women.”



Okay, I don’t know. WHAT DID I JUST READ?



What Girls Are Made Of is a character-driven story and was written on Nina’s point of view.



Nina was a 16 years old teenager who had a boyfriend named Seth and they were sexually active. At the age of fourteen, her mother once told her that “love is conditional” and that at any moment she even could stop loving her. And that’s what Nina knew and believed since then.



It’s the opposite of beautiful, sparks and glitters shinning everywhere book. There’s no holding back in showing the ugliness, the implausibility of the characters.



From the very start, I already felt heavy while reading this book and that’s what I felt until the very end. This book talks about so many sensitive issues. It has quite a lot of sexual contents but this is NOT an erotic one. It talks about sex, abortion, miscarriages, birth control and almost anything concerning sex. What Girls Are Made Of shows us the reality about sex, love, teens and tries to answer questions in between.



The story about Nina, Seth and Apollonia was really bad and upsetting. Nina made something bad a year ago with Apollonia – which apparently, a new Pakistani girl and Seth’s girlfriend at that time. The terrible thing Nina made to Apollonia was the reason Seth became hers then when they were together – in my own interpretation – it was only sex that Seth wants from her. Then one day, something happened then Seth without-words-said broke up with her. Then she just found out and saw in their school that Seth and Apollonia were back together again. Nina got pregnant with Seth’s but Seth completely had no idea about it even until Nina already aborted it.This book makes us question what we always thought true about true love and make us see the painful reality side of it. I also learned so many things about birth control and abortion. I liked those parts because realistically, that’s one of the things many teenagers should be aware of – especially those who are sexually active just like Nina and Seth. But what I’ve learned about abortion can also be made as a “reason” or as an “excuse” by some teenagers to have sex and do abortion because you’ll basically learn many ways of aborting a child in this book. That will make you be aware how easy the procedures really were.



This book also portrays bad parenting. What Nina had become was mostly because of her mom. First, she thought her that love is conditional, that’s why when she fell in love with Seth she took care of the relationship by following the unsaid conditions that was only said by her, and then she told her stories about the Virgin Martyrs and so many things about sex and art and sex and everything in between. Nobody even stood as Nina’s parents. They were just named as parents, that’s all. There wasn’t even a trace of love in their home. I felt really bad for it. Nina grew up like she doesn’t even have parents at all. She lives in a huge house – the one where rich people lives – but her parents were not always around. It was clearly showed on Nina’s character especially the way she thinks how bad parenting can affect a life. This aspect of the book serves as a lesson that clearly shows how parents take huge part on their children’s lives.



This book, indeed, portrays realistic perfectly flawed characters. It also tackles timely situations where some teenagers find their selves in. It also has opinions that somehow a little bit related to religion and – of course, again – sex that the interpretation may vary from reader to reader. Personally, I felt that this book was too much. I just felt bad most of the time because of what I was reading and the ideas I was conceiving. And the story of Nina, no matter how realistic and timely she and her situation was, it was dragging and just seemed like going nowhere. The plot really didn’t please me as a reader.



The very sensitive issue I personally dislike the most in this book was that thing about the Virgin Martyrs and how Nina said that they were actually being aroused by God. That what they were feeling was lust and not the holiness of God. I am wholeheartedly offended and as a Catholic and I see it as very disrespectful. Even though I know that not all people believe in Him, I still really felt so disrespected at that time. It was like she’s saying that those Virgin Martyrs were having sex with God. That was so AWFUL.



I can’t say that I really hate this book but I personally didn’t enjoy this either. I don’t wholly like Nina BUT I like the fact that she was perfectly flawed and shows a very realistic portrayal of teenagers who got bad parenting from their parents. I do not wholly dislike her because I understand that what she had become was just because of her parents and not just because the author wants her to be like that with no apparent reason. This book has many things to say concerning so many sensitive issues that are really timely but not every message this book conveys was suitable for everyone, some were even hard to accept or even comprehend and it just really depends on how the reader will interpret those messages.



I felt really disconnected with this book. And there were so many beliefs or ideas I do not personally agree with which is maybe one of the reasons why I just felt REALLY unattached. And I felt no sense of direction where the story was going. It just feels like the talking about sex and Nina’s mother’s implausible beliefs about love will never end. I can’t find it in me to like this story. It was just okay. It was JUST OKAY for me.



The end wasn’t properly closed and it leaves so many questions in my head. I honestly don’t know if I should feel happy or sad because it already ended. “What girls are made of?” is the very question this book aims to answer. And the answer is actually satisfying enough. That’s the reason why I am giving a 2.5 rating for this book. It was okay. But this is just definitely not for me.

A dark read. Nina is obsessed with Seth. She loves him so much that she does something terrible to a girl she is worried he might like. Forced to volunteer at a high-kill shelter in order to make up for what she did, Nina soon loses Seth and must come to terms with what she did. A very compelling read.

hank you to NetGalley and Lerner Group and Carolrhoda Lab for the ARC, What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K Arnold. I wish I could have enjoyed this book – not only did I dislike Nina, but her mother was totally responsible for messing her up in so many unbelievable, vilke ways and the chapters dealing with women, saints, and torture were in the book, why??? Gut wrenching, this story was without redemption, which is an important element in many, many novels. Nina’s only saving grace was the time she served for community service at a no-kill shelter and the fact that she continued after she fulfilled her time. Seth and her “best friend” Louise were self serving characters and one dimensional. Even after reading The Author Note I agreed with the author about not liking Nina and her choices. I did not like how the plot and characters delivered the very important message, “What are you made of?” Maybe girls will like reading Nina’s story and take something positive away from it, I was just sorry I could not love this book.

This is a book that made me think. Deeply. It starts with Nina's declaration, "When I was fourteen, my mother told me there was no such thing as unconditional love." Colored by her mothers' skewed perceptions of women and their worth, Nina proceeds to do anything she can to keep her boyfriend, Seth. It's a losing battle, and Nina finds herself used, tossed aside, and pregnant. But that is not the sum total of Nina's story. Interspersed with her narrative are her short vignettes that alternately share the stories of various female saints or provide insight into her existence using the metaphor of a bird. Arnold gives readers a subtle dose of critical feminist theory as she evaluates the stories and art of the martyred women who so captivated Italian art. This is a story that is beautifully crafted and compellingly written, but the explicit scenes of sexuality, fellatio, and use of a vibrator will cause school librarians a moment of cause before determining whether they will proceed with caution.

This is just a perfect book. A clusterfuck of emotional, mental and physical anguish of being a teenage girl in a nutshell. We have all been there. We have all felt these things or had these thoughts. Arnold didn't flinch or hold anything back.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

Being a girl or woman can be exceedingly complex and emotional. It is not always a comfortable place to be but should definitely be experienced. I think this is the first book I've read that has really captured that for me. Not to say that other books didn't have a glimpse of it but "What Girls are Made of" just seemed to capture it fully. It is sad and depressing yet at the end there is peace and a sense of being whole again.