Untangled - Guiding teenage girls through seven transitions into adulthood

By Lisa Damour (2017)

It's hard to give an one size fits all rating to a book which is mostly superb but which also contains a few suggestions that are neither easy to implement or to accept, so it is necessary to break it down a bit in this review. 

On the very large plus side, the analysis of the problem of raising girls in the First World is spot on, although in this regard, there is probably more to be said about the recent surge in anxiety in young women and indeed Lisa has just written a book on this exact subject which is due for release in the near future. 

On the downside, scattered amongst the often extremely sensible suggestions, there are a few strategies that simply won't work for empowered teens who have grown up with huge spades of confidence in their young years but who suddenly face the brick wall of puberty in the modern, nominally comfortable world we mostly live in nowadays.

You do have to wonder if a good old dose of the Blitz would sort out some of the problems we currently face with such a monstrous rise in anxiety in young women.  I say this as I just heard Jonathan Haidt's TED talk in which he mentions how experience of war in youth increases co-operation in later years and from all the reading on positive psychology, it seems pretty clear that random acts of kindness are known to increase one's happiness.  Plus a load of co-operative behaviour might also help since teens currently face intense pressure of competition in school and on social media, which coupled with a teen's natural desire to find their place in the pecking order, is just bound to create a perfect storm of anxiety.

These broader ideas are largely outside the scope of this book but there are nonetheless some really useful insights into the parent/young woman relationship, such as the fact that a mother is far less likely to respect the privacy of her daughter than she is of her son.  Immediate lesson: demonstrating total and an unequivocal respect for one's daughter is only fair and if one thinks about it, so empowering - remember those moments when your own parents seemed respectful!  This surely is a fast track to success for many a woman.

Rating 7/10