I still vividly remember my years as an adolescent girl. That time in my life is an experience that I really never care to relive. Being a teenaged girl is hard! My own daughter is only four, but she will be a teenager in no time. Thus, when recently offered the chance to review Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman by Naomi Katz in exchange for my honest opinion, I eagerly accepted the opportunity.
Price
Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman (2016) currently costs $16.95 with a current sale price of $5.25 on Amazon. The book is comparatively priced to other non-fiction books of similar length. I thus rate the price positively.
Author
Naomi Katz is the visionary behind the Beautiful Project, a movement dedicated to building self-confidence in women and girls. She is an educator who empowers women and girls to redefine our culture by reclaiming the language that they use to talk about themselves. Naomi has worked with women and girls for over 15 years on four continents. Inspired by the indigenous practices of the women of the earth, she has traveled the world studying ancient wisdom. You can follow her on Twitter.
Text
In Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman, Katz peels back the veneer on our cultural ideal of airbrushed perfection to reveal that beauty lays within. The ten chapters plus an introduction and conclusion discuss body image, the media, relationships, competition, sex, peer pressure, and more. As the mother of a young daughter who will someday soon become an adolescent girl, I found the book extremely informative. The text covers so many topics relevant to teenagers growing up today. I especially appreciate all the tips that Katz offers to young women. She may not have all the answers, but she provides a lot of insight and great ideas for navigating the murky waters of adolescence.
I read a chapter or two of Beautiful a day and finished the entire book in a little over a week. However, if you sat down and really focused, you could get through the entire text in a single setting. The language is easy to follow and written with teenaged girl in mind. Each chapter includes thoughts on each subject from the author as well as quotes from actual teenaged girls and definitions of various terms. The tone is never patronizing, and I never felt like the book talked down to me. I plan to keep my copy of this book to share with my daughter as she grows up and enters adolescence.
As a parent, I definitely worry about helping my children navigate their lives as teenagers. I especially worry about my daughter because I vividly remember the turmoil of being an adolescent girl. Beautiful will be a great tool in my parenting arsenal as my daughter grows up. She can also read the book on her own and come to me with any questions or concerns that she might have. I finally love the overall message of the book: Teaching girls to love their own bodies. Although the problem is large, perhaps reading Beautiful can offer a step in the right direction to ending the cycle of negative self-image among teenaged girls by promoting healthy choices physically, emotionally, and mentally instead of worrying about achieving an impossible perfect image.
Final Verdict
If you are a parent of a girl, I recommend picking up a copy of Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman by Naomi Katz. The text weaves together narratives from real teens with strategies to help young women cope with contemporary issues. The book is an easy read for adults and teenagers alike, and the text offers useful insights to complex adolescent issues without ever coming across as condescending. I look forward to sharing Beautiful with my daughter as she grows up.
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Image Credits
‘Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman’ Book Review © 2016 Heather Johnson
Front Cover of ‘Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman’ © 2016 Heather Johnson
Back Cover of ‘Beautiful: Being an Empowered Young Woman’ © 2016 Heather Johnson
