As a mom to a teenage girl I really appreciated the chance to review this book. It is a must have for anyone that works with, cares for, or parents an adolescent girl. There is so much j pressure on girls now to be perfect in an imperfect world it is no wonder so many have depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. This book gives us knowledge and tasks to do with and for adolescent girls Highly recommend.

What an amazing book. This is a must read for all parents who have daughters to help better understand them and to help them on their journey to womanhood.

Thought this was a really thoughtful and open-minded take on teenage girls that's definitely for parents but handles the content really well. I learned a lot and will be looking back on this for future reporting.

This one is a must buy for girl parents. It is such an important book, and I have already ordered a physical copy that I can refer back to! It provides such a wealth of meaningful information and help in the sometimes daunting process of raising our girls.

This was one of my favorite books in a long time! The writing was beautiful, and the stories were wonderful. I couldn’t put this one down!

Thank you Rodale and NetGalley for this ARC.

As the mother of girls this book was invaluable, I learned so much and things I previously read were substantiated. The subject matter doesn’t shy from the tough subjects however it is very accessible, easy to read . I feel a little more confident navigating through the tough times and am thankful for the clarity and insightfulness reading this book has provided.

I highly recommend this book and am grateful for the opportunity to review this ARC.

I was very interested in reading this book as I have been doing a lot of research into mental health and how it's affecting people these days, especially girls and women, after dealing with my own mental health issues and witnessing people close to me struggle with the same thing. This was very insightful. It was easy to read, which is great because sometimes nonfiction books dealing with health and wellness/science can be filled with terminology or writing styles that makes it difficult for a lay-person to actually understand and process all the information being presented.

I really liked the blend of real-life stories and scientific knowledge and background. As a mother of a teenage daughter who has been struggling with anxiety and panic attacks since 2020, this book was exactly what I needed. It both helped me better process some of my childhood trauma as well as provides ways I can help my own daughter thrive. I also love when a book includes action-oriented steps you can take to work through these challenging times.

As the mother of a teenage son and a preteen son, I devoured an advance copy of Girls on the Brink. This book provides adults with a mirror and tools to understand our own childhood/teen trauma and adversity and the challenges that followed. Further, and more specifically, this book is a must-read for parents - particularly for parents of girls. It's vital reading for anyone who knows girls. Donna Jackson Nakazawa tackles the pressing question: "What is going on with our girls?" She highlights research, studies, and interviews. She probes the question scientifically and personally - interviewing girls, young women, and a wide range of specialists, including scientists, professors, doctors, and more. After painting a vivid and complete picture of the issues facing girls, Donna Jackson Nakazawa devotes the largest portion of her book to fifteen antidotes: fifteen ways we can help and support girls, so they may thrive in these challenging times. I can't recommend this book highly enough. I have already purchased 4 copies to share with friends, and I'll be purchasing more soon. Thank you to Donna Jackson Nakazawa for writing this compelling, urgent, and life-blessing book.

This was a tough book for me to review/rate. There is a lot of good information here but it also often feels overwhelming. Statistics, epigenetics, psychological theories, etc. The first half of the book also has a unrelenting sense of catastrophe. Sexism, racism , climate change, mass shooting, etc.; It’s as if young people are living in a dystopian world. No mention of the fact that, in important ways, America is safer than practically any country in history. And no real discussion of how the media catastrophizes so much of our lives. How is a culture dominated by progressives so toxic? There doesn't seem to be room for nuance and scale. Surely. individual circumstances play an important role in the level of trauma and threat to girls' safety but it felt like the book was lumping all girls into the same threat level at times.

The chief argument of the book however is important. Basically, girls are particularly susceptible to long term stressors when young and this has serious consequences as they age. Our social media saturated culture amplifies these stressors in dangerous ways. As a result rates for anxiety and depression are exploding. This is biological not simply psychological. Girls are losing an important aspect of their development with dangerous repercussions.

For me, the strongest part of the book was the second half where the author offers antidotes to help girls flourish. I think these sections are very helpful in thinking about protecting girls from a hostile world.

Maybe those with a background in science would find the first half more compelling and those without a suspicion of progressivism could get past the constant mantra of sexism, racism, climate crisis, etc. take that for what it is worth.

As a mom of a 2 year old girl, and as a woman who struggled with an eating disorder for a large part of her young adult life, I worry constantly about the impact of media and social media on my child. I grew up without the devastating impacts of social media, but the messages I received in the media in general were enough to impress upon me the importance of what I looked like, and I grew up feeling not good enough. It took me years of therapy as an adult to begin to overcome some truly negative thoughts I have held about my worth and value as a person. I worry that my daughter will be predisposed because of me, and with the looming presence of social media that she will encounter in the future, I want to ensure she is armed with tools to navigate what she will face in a way that I wasn’t. This book by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, “Girls on the Brink” is just what I needed to navigate raising a confident and empowered daughter in today's world!

Not only does the Nakazawa go through the statistics of how harmful social media is on our young girls in perpetuating unrealistic standards, expectations, and ideas about what a woman is or should be, she also shares strategies for how parents can be a bigger influence than that of the media, to provide buffers against what messages they will encounter in the world.

The mark of a good book for me is one I keep writing passages down from because I want to revisit and really soak in the wisdom, and this book had that for me. I will be coming back to Nakazawa's words again and again to make sure that my young girl has some armor for what she will face as she gets older.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the Advanced Review Copy that was provided for my review. I will be a better mom to my daughter because of this book, and I thank you Donna Nakazawa for sharing this with us. The book is available today. For anyone raising young girls, I highly recommend you check this out!

"Girls on the Brink" has been extensively researched and is practically required reading for parents trying to maintain a healthy self image for their teenage daughters.
I plan to send a hardback copy to my sister to use as a reference for guiding her teenage daughter to navigate high school to adulthood.
I thought it was interesting that the first advice to parents was to look back at your own childhood and remember how you reacted to a trauma you may have had, and to realize you should try not to react that way now to a trauma your child may have.
The book states that girls suffer more from poor self image, anxiety and depression than boys. As a mother of a son, I do not think this is entirely true. However, this book provides many ways to empathize and empower your teen, which can be applied to both sexes.

As a mother of two preteens, I needed this book and found it to be a great resource. Donna Jackson Nakazawa artfully blends cutting edge science with real experiences to create an eye opening and impactful book with antidotes/strategies that we can use in our day to day life. I will be recommending this book to anyone that cares for or has a girl in their life.

Our young girls today face so much adversity in their lives. One may think that it is only psychologically based however, as Donna Jackson Nakazawa explains, there is a biological focus as well. Girls are maturing earlier, being exposed to so many more chemicals and hormones than in the past, and they are faced with the onslaught of social media. All of these factors have contributed to the increase in depression, anxiety, and other stress related diseases that are on the rise in our young women. There is an entire section of the book dedicated to strategies that can be used to help young girls. There is so much worthwhile information in this book. There is data, research, strategies, and much more to help young girls. While there is so much information presented, one would think that it would be impossible to follow and understand. That couldn’t be farthest from the truth. Donna Jackson Nakazawa is able to integrate all of this information and make it easily understood by all readers. As a current educator, this book is a phenomenal read and I highly recommend it. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

I highly recommend Girls on the Brink, a new title by brilliant science journalist, author, and teacher Donna Jackson Nakazawa. This book is especially relevant for parents of pre-school to college-age daughters, as well as teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, therapists, and all of us who care about helping girls in coping with the challenges relating to living in our world today.

In this book, Jackson Nakazawa potently connects the dots to underscore an unfortunate reality: while the increasing stressors and adversity of growing up today has brought us a never-ending mental health crisis for kids in general, it is especially harmful to girls.

In the first half of the book, Jackson Nakazawa lays out the scientific facts and shares the key factors as to why the stressors of life today are having an exceedingly negative impact on girls. In the second half, the author shifts from explaining the situation and related problems to offering actionable solutions. She lays out a framework and tools in the form of fifteen antidotes designed to help our girls overcome the daunting adversity and find a sense of wellbeing.

Jackson Nakazawa elegantly weaves together scientific data, research insights, and anecdotal stories to create a compelling work on the urgent need to mitigate the damage from toxic stressors on our girls. While deep enough in the science, Jackson Nakazawa is also very relatable on an emotional level as she shares her paradoxical feelings of deep concern with her hope for the future and concludes by making a very compelling case that we need to act now.

Girls on the Brink gives non-scientists and “regular people like me” a solid understanding of the potential impacts of traumatic childhood experiences on our health and wellness in adulthood – and specifically, to girls and women. It belongs on the bookshelf next to two other notable works on these complex subjects: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk, M.D. and The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke-Harris, M.D.

In my work as a trauma-informed mindfulness teacher and coach, I often work with teenagers and young adults. I’ve seen the challenges of “growing up today” through the tears in their eyes. For the sake of all of us, and especially our girls and young women, I hope that the information in this provocative new book reaches as many people as possible, as soon as possible.

Must read if you have girls, work with girls or even know girls. Informative, enlightening read. I was able to read it early through Netgalley but it will be released in a couple of weeks.
Don't miss this book

Donna is an absolutely BRILLIANT medical journalist! Once again she has taken an incredibly important and complex issue and written about it in a highly approachable way that is also deeply rooted in science and absolutely fascinating.

Though I only have one child, and he is a boy, Donna’s latest book is extremely important to me as someone on a mission to make the world a healthier and happier place...and it should be to everyone. The massive problems our girls are facing impacts ALL of us.

Donna saw this rapidly growing problem - rates of anxiety, depression, & self-harming in our girls - and took the initiative to get to the root of it by chasing the “Why?” From her many years of investigating other somewhat ignored, yet epidemic, societal health issues she knows THAT is the only way to find solutions that really bring about change and healing.

Donna’s findings base this issue in biology. The “perfect storm” combination of earlier puberty, non-stop social media exposure, and cultural misogyny, during a vulnerable neurodevelopmental time can trigger a stress-immune response that locks females into some of the widespread mental and physical health challenges we see them facing at much higher rates than ever before.

We have gotten to a critical moment in time where it really needs to be “all hands on deck” to help save our girls. Thankfully Donna provides the roadmap and brings very doable solutions to the table that we can all use with the girls in our lives. Essentially, each one of us is a "bucket" that takes in many inputs from society and our every day lives, but when we can address even one stressor we can make a difference. When we support our girls in this way the ripple effect will not only improve the world now, but also future generations to come.

This is a book that needs to be shared with everyone you know. Donna has truly started a movement!

A must-read for parents and educators! Donna Jackson Nakazawa, a research journalist, gets it right in her latest book, Girls on the Brink-Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media. Jackson shares some of the current research about the interplay between hormones (particularly estrogen) and the developing brain at a time when advances in society and technology have far outpaced humans' ability to adapt and thrive.

Jackson posits that gone are the days when adolescence was a time to treat lightly into adulthood; today, prepping for college starts in elementary school (or earlier). Competition is embedded in nearly every area of life, potentially leading to increased stress and poor self-image...and all of this is on display, thanks to social media, for friends and strangers to 'like', critique, and use as fodder for abuse on social media.

Help and healing come in the form of 15 antidotes. Largely relationship-based, these antidotes provide strategies for understanding trauma and its effect on physical and mental health as well as concrete ways to build an appreciation for voice and choice, taming reactions, and taking action.

Girls on the Brink is a must-read for parents, teachers, and healthcare professionals. Donna Jackson Nakazawa conscientiously explores the evolving science behind how and why our girls are suffering digging into the roles of biology, psychology, and social structures. What is more important though is rather than allowing us to sit paralyzed in the overwhelming nature of the problem, she then empowers readers to use any combination of the 15 different strategies and scripts to forge stronger more supportive relationships with our daughters. As a mom of 2 young girls and a physician, I have no doubt that I will be returning back to this book time and time again in the coming years.

As a Psychologist, I work with young adult females that are struggling with a lot of anxiety. This book does a masterful job of presenting the multitude of issues that girls and young adults face today and have been facing in the past 10 years. Not only does it go through and explains the various challenges that girls face today, but it also provides thoughtful antidotes. This is a great book for parents, aunts, educators, therapists, nurses, primary care physicians, or just about anyone really, to read.