From my Amazon Review:
If you grew up in a privileged elitist household where a routine summer vacation involved vacationing on islands off the North East coast - while your parents played tennis all day on clay courts - perhaps you will enjoy this.
This book is one big contradiction and a thinly veiled attempt by author Bolick to prove herself a far superior being than the average intellectual. Bolick opens the book by explaining that she was quite popular in highschool. Then when to college and that's when she was taken down a peg and lost her Queen Bee status - this feels like quite the stab at regaining that hold - unfortunately she does it by throwing old bosses and old boyfriends gleefully under the gold plated tires of her father's Bentley.
Bolick says EVERY woman is obsessed with "who to marry" and it starts when they are young children. Maybe in the crowd she grew up in, but my friends and I were "obsessed" with what our career path would be.
Bolick contradicts herself in almost every chapter - she seems to say she was raised to believe women could become anything and that we are strong and intelligent, yetttttt - she is not strong enough, perhaps more importantly, not courageous enough to stand up for "single-hood" and spends her time researching women who either said no to marriage or regretted marriage. Bolick is seeking validation - which ultimately undermines her narrative.
Though she states she worked 4 jobs at once, she also made several references to the fact her father has financed her whole life and will continue to do so - most women do not have such luxury of "finding themselves" leisurely knowing they have a huge net to catch them at anytime. And what, pray-tell, is Independent or Brave about that? I have a strong feeling that her four jobs at once story was more along the lines of Brian Williams.
Also - for someone who seems to be promoting the power of women, she had terse words to say regarding women she worked with in the publishing industry, as well as girlfriends of her ex's - no matter how hard she tries to hide it, it's obvious she is quite envious and/or resentful and this also undermines her "WOMEN ARE AWESOME" theory - because the only women who are awesome seem to be the ones she feels superior to.
She only dates men who come by wealth by way of family heritage, which gives the men she dates time to ready and write poetry, paint, discover themselves. It's quite hysterical and perhaps this is why she has so much trouble with men; she can't find any real men who understand that workboots aren't a fashion statement.
The end of the book is probably the most intellectually handicapped: Bolick tells us all about a pilgramge (she literally uses that word) to an island to "rough it" for TWO hours with her current elite boyfriend, (even though she doesn't NEED one) and her rich (but tres bohemian girlfriend) then ferry back to rich boyfriends island home (owned by his parents, of course) where they will eat lobster drenched in melted butter and share several bottles of wine - sitting on the porch and talking into the night.
If I rated a book based on pretentiousness - this would be 10 stars.
