Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic
"The best book about the current state of girls and young women in America, Girls on the Edge, by a physician and psychologist named Leonard Sax, offers astonishing and troubling new insight into the role and consequences of binge drinking in so many girls’ lives."
Booklist
“In clear, accessible language, Sax deftly blends anecdotes, clinical research, and even lines of poetry in persuasive, often fascinating chapters that speak straight to parents…Warning that ‘a 1980s solution’ won’t help solve twenty-first-century problems, Sax offers a holistic, sobering call to help the current generation of young women develop the support and sense of self that will allow them to grow into resilient adults.”
Library Journal
“The world is way different from what it was a couple of years ago; this is essential reading for parents and teachers, and one of the most thought-provoking books on teen development available.”
Slate’s Double X Book of the Week
“Fortunately, [Leonard] Sax is up to more here than pronouncing young women irrevocably doomed…Girls on the Edge doesn't dramatize the self-destructive behavior it describes…[and it] speaks exclusively to parents and offers concrete ways to help their daughters cultivate stronger personal identities.”
Florence Hilliard, Director of the Gender Studies Project, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“Dr. Sax once again combines years of experience with compelling research and common sense to intelligently challenge the status quo of what it means to raise a healthy daughter. Girls on the Edge offers skills parents can incorporate to feel more competent with our girls and young women.”
Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, author of God’s Paintbrush and In God’s Name
“Turn off your cell phones and computers, and read this book! You will connect with your daughter in new ways, and she will thank you.”
Margaret M. Ferrara, PhD, editor of Advances in Gender and Education (A.G.E.) and associate professor, University of Nevada Reno
“Written through real stories and supported by strong evidence in the fields of education, psychology, and the sciences - a MUST read.”
Courtney E. Martin, author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters
“Leonard Sax brings together a rare combination of psychoanalytic training with a deep empathy for girls and their stories in this important book. His argument that girls are struggling to find their centers will resonate and his recommendations for how to locate them will inspire.”
According to family physician/psychologist Sax (Boys Adrift; Why Gender Matters), when parents don't teach their daughters well, the marketplace fills the vacuum with what it thinks girls should look like, do, and be—and it's all wrong. Sax clarifies his four driving factors in this new crisis: sexual identity: the concept of lifelong commitment is almost unknown, and sexual confusion results when girls don't know what to expect from boyfriends; the cyberbubble: kids are constantly in touch via technology, and girls become microcelebrities, constantly living and acting as if in front of a crowd; obsessions: without realizing it, girls are obsessed with becoming ultra thin, perfecting their grades, and abusing "fun" (alcohol, drugs, sex); and environmental toxins: early puberty is related to chemicals in plastics and phthalates in skin creams. Sax supports single-sex high schools, gender-appropriate sports for girls, and nurturing girls' spirituality to provide orientation when a crisis occurs. VERDICT The world is way different from what it was a couple of years ago; this is essential reading for parents and teachers, and one of the most thought-provoking books on teen development available.—Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA
