The End of Men and the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin

I really enjoyed this book; it was a lot like The Richer Sex, but more readable/easy to read. Rosin discusses all the ways that women are surpassing men: education, careers, financially. I would recommend this book over The Richer Sex, but both are great reads if you want to learn more about how women are outperforming men.

The Erotic History of Advertising by Tom Reichert

I found this to be a really insightful book. It went through using sex in advertising through the ages (starting in the late 1800s and going through present) and also in specific campaigns (perfume/cologne, intimates, jeans, etc). It shows and explains a lot of examples and also goes over how not only are items sold, but the lifestyle surrounding them. Like if you wear Guess? Jeans, you instantly become desirable and people flock to you. I would recommend this book if you are interested in the history of advertising and how sex sells things, including sex itself.

The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love, and Family by Liza Mundy

I loved this book! I seem to be having a streak of really great feminist nonfiction books and I am not complaining! Mundy discusses the increase of women in college, which is leading females to be taking higher-paying jobs than their male counterparts. This has impacted the family dynamic and has led to an increase in non-traditional home lives, such as stay at home fathers/husbands, since the wife makes more money. I thought the book was really interesting. It does discuss the difficulties of women who don't want to "marry down" (marry someone less educated than them), since more and more women are getting graduate degrees, which leads to less (graduate-educated) men to match them with. Mundy also talks about how work/school/home life will be in the future if the trends continue the way they are going.

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf

I really loved this book! The book is divided into chapters such as violence, hunger, and sex and how what Wolf terms as "the beauty myth" interacts with them. Like violence is not domestic violent disputes, but violence against one's body, such as plastic surgery and fixing flaws that aren't really there through surgical means. The book was originally published in 1991, so it definitely shows its age. I wish there was an updated version of it that included more recent statistics, but the book is still extremely relevant--maybe even more so than when it was originally published--and worth a read.

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy

I had high hopes for this book, really, I did. It took me two check outs before I finally had a chance to read it, and then I was disappointed. It was kind of like the unprofessionalism of Down the Up Escalator made it to feminist, non-fiction works. It felt like the book was full of Levy's own opinions, and less about facts and how the degrading and oversexualization of women has reduced culture. This book is only 10 or so years old, but so much has changed since it was written...it would be much better if they did a tenth anniversary revised edition to include Facebook (the book talked about Friendster and LJ...talk about a flashback!). I did get the point that women sexualizing each other like men do is not a good thing, but there is no talk of instead of lowering women to men's levels, of raising men to women's levels (if that makes sense). Like...why all the sexualization? Who really wins from that?

MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search For a New Best Friend by Rachel Bertsche

I love love loved this book. It really resounded with me, especially because all of my high school friends had moved away from home, and then I did, too, two weeks ago. So I find myself in a new city with like two friends besides my boyfriend, which lends itself to a pretty lonely existence, especially now since I am all graduated with my MLS from UNT and don't have homework to keep me busy. ALSO, my job just moved, and I was one of the last to come into this new coworker group, and everyone seems to have their own friends already and aren't interested in me, or making more, or something. ANYWAY, about the book and not ME, the author chronicles her year-long mission to go on 52 girl-dates, as she calls them. She goes through all the different methods and ways she used to meet people and make friends, and it is really comprehensive, going from friends of friends to rent-a-friend (which is crazy, IMO, and super sketchy). Also interspersed are factoids on the science of meeting and making friends, which was really interesting. I definitely recommend this!

A Little F'd Up: Why Feminism Is Not a Dirty Word by Julie Zeilinger

I must say, I am very impressed that Zeilinger is 19/20 years old and wrote this. I had to get that out of the way. So, basically, this book is a great overview of feminism, including a little more than an overview, but not in-depth, discussion of the history of feminism, like the first, second, and third waves and the big players of each movement. I personally really enjoyed that, even though I am not a big fan of history, but because I am pretty new to this whole feminism thing and didn't know the waves and what each one did, etc etc. I'd recommend this for anyone wanting to dip their toe into feminism or just wanting to know what it's all about. Unfortunately, I do have the same complaint about this book as I did with Jessica Valenti's: what is with all the cursing??? Are you doing it to be tough, or break gender roles, or what? It doesn't matter if it's a male or female or whoever, I just do not appreciate all the cursing in these books.

Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti

This book is a really great intro to feminism, although slightly outdated since it is from 2006, but also makes it interesting to see what is going on now (namely, the War Against Women) compared to where women were 6 years ago. Let's just say...it seems like things have gotten worse, much worse, particularly regarding women's choices, like abortion and the "personhood" movement (which, amazingly, is not a new idea since Valenti discusses it here). I do have a couple of issues with this book. I understand that Valenti is from Queens and blah blah blah, but does she really have to say "I shit you not" a million and a half times, along with all her cursing? She also does not fully research particular subjects, or just assumes what she knows to be true or thinks things are odd and assumes the reader will agree (this reader does not). For example, this reader had a grave issue with Valenti's misunderstanding about purity rings and purity balls and pledging purity. She does not think that this is important to some people, especially religious folks who believe the Bible when it says that you should not have extramarital sex, and that includes premarital sex. It is part of a religious belief system and she should not want feminism to change that. It is also up to each person to decide what they believe regarding that. Another issue I had is that she sees labiaplasties is frivolous when in fact, some women desperately need them because their labia are so long it hurts for them to walk or sit in certain positions. All things said, I was already a follower of feministing.com and will continue to read it. She didn't need to advertise it so much, but oh well.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

I really, really enjoyed this book, and it was a breeze to read. The story centers around a girl, the titled Frankie Landau-Banks. She attends a boarding (?) school that her father went to starting her freshman year, where she is essentially invisible until she becomes a sophmore with boobs and a boyfriend who happens to be the most popular guy at school (and a senior...gasp!). She is very annoyed, though, because Mr. Boyfriend keeps ditching her for his friend Alpha on a oh-too-regular basis, so one night she follows him and discovers that the secret male society that her father randomly referenced being a part of is actually true, with her boyfriend and Alpha as the Kings. She knows her father talked about some book of the secret society's, so she goes out to find it, and in the meantime, poses as Alpha online and sets up ridiculous pranks against the school, very a la Looking for Alaska. Her whole point is to show that girls can be just as good as guys when it comes to pranks and that the secret society should not be male-only. I really loved the feminist bent to the story (anything boys can do, girls can do...better), which is something I would not have picked up on had I been an actual teen reader and/or not suddenly wanting to know about feminism and its roots, thank you, Republican Party, for your War on Women. 

Catfight: Women and Competition by Leora Tanenbaum

I really really really enjoyed this book. My only caveat is that it is 10 years old, so Facebook is known as the "face book" (that is verbatim from the book). Tanenbaum does a wonderful job of exhibiting why and how women compete against each other in the realms of beauty, dating, careers, and motherhood. Since it was written before Facebook became a household name, it would be interesting to see how the book would change if it were updated today. Facebook has become the ultimate in competition--I, personally, have been Facebook-free for almost three months and life has gotten a lot better. I would spend so much time on it, essentially comparing myself to all my friends and acquaintances daily. I saw who started a relationship, who ended one, who got engaged, married, had a baby, graduated, owned a house, etc., and always felt that my life did not measure up. But it measures up just fine for me right now, since I no longer constantly compare myself to people I rarely see in real life, let alone people who truly matter on a daily basis (that is not to say that I compare myself to people I see every day). I definitely recommend this book (and sorry about the Facebook tangent)!