I was really excited to learn the history of " it girls" however I found myself struggling to get through certain parts of the book. It was just ok for me

I love this type of book, collecting mini-bios of people who share some trait or another. This one, about famous sex symbols throughout history, was very entertaining and well done. I expected to enjoy the historical subjects more than the modern ones, because I’m generally more interested in history than celebrity. But I ended up enjoying the book from the first page to the last. Bringing the stories right up to the current moment emphasized the full sweep of the topic in a way that just focusing on historical “It Girls” would not have done.

"It" girls have been profilic in all time periods a fact that Young shows through this travel through history. With various chapters about women as varied as Nell Gwynn to Britney Spears, the author brings you right into celebrity culture with all of its triumphs and pitfalls.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

The It Girls takes a thoughtful look at the complex lives of historical, influential women. These women often had their ambitions and accomplishments minimized in order to create space for the drama and gossip their lives provided the public. I enjoyed the author’s comparisons between historic and modern “it girls” to help contextualize their cultural impacts.

This is like the nerdy history girls version of a gossip column - loved it!

It was really fascinating to learn about the lives of historical IT girls, and really see the similarities in the treatment of beautiful and driven women from the past to now.

While fascinating and detailed with intriguing life tidbits, I rather had hoped for a little bit of a deeper ending or conclusive wrap up which spoke about how society allows this to continue or…I dunno, something. It felt like a collection of interesting mini-bios but I was missing the hard-hitting, gravitas thread that pulled them all together in an impactful lesson…
Don’t get me wrong, glimpses of this were throughout, but I think I wanted a bit more depth.

I’ve always been interested and fascinated by an It Girl. It was so interesting learning of the different sit girls of the course of our history and how they came to be