Edited by Ellen Sussman
I’ve always considered myself a “good girl”. My mother used to tell me, “Amy, stop being such a Pollyanna!” Not that I’ve never done anything bad. The first bad thing that I can remember is at around age five, I told my younger sister that she was adopted. She bit me.
Bad Girls is a collection of essays about being bad. Many of my favorite authors are featured, including Caroline Leavitt, Katharine Weber, Pam Houston and Lolly Winston. Their acts of rebellion range from small transgressions such as lying and skipping school to bigger ones, like experimenting with sex and drugs. Most of the writers seem to remember their bad girl sides fondly, almost like an old friend they’d forgotten. My favorites were the ones about girls who were mostly good people, but occasionally did something wild and daring, because as we all know, bad girls have much more fun. I also enjoyed the essays in which the writer confesses not to committing some huge sin, but to something that that made them "bad" in someone else’s eyes. Joyce Maynard writes, “And what is a bad girl really, but a girl who doesn’t always do the things other people tell her she is supposed to. Sometimes its true, a bad girl may be someone who cheats or steals or hurts people or lies. And sometimes a bad girl is just someone who tells the truth.”
I’ve always considered myself a “good girl”. My mother used to tell me, “Amy, stop being such a Pollyanna!” Not that I’ve never done anything bad. The first bad thing that I can remember is at around age five, I told my younger sister that she was adopted. She bit me.
Bad Girls is a collection of essays about being bad. Many of my favorite authors are featured, including Caroline Leavitt, Katharine Weber, Pam Houston and Lolly Winston. Their acts of rebellion range from small transgressions such as lying and skipping school to bigger ones, like experimenting with sex and drugs. Most of the writers seem to remember their bad girl sides fondly, almost like an old friend they’d forgotten. My favorites were the ones about girls who were mostly good people, but occasionally did something wild and daring, because as we all know, bad girls have much more fun. I also enjoyed the essays in which the writer confesses not to committing some huge sin, but to something that that made them "bad" in someone else’s eyes. Joyce Maynard writes, “And what is a bad girl really, but a girl who doesn’t always do the things other people tell her she is supposed to. Sometimes its true, a bad girl may be someone who cheats or steals or hurts people or lies. And sometimes a bad girl is just someone who tells the truth.”
I enjoyed reading the true stories of these women's darkest secrets and sometimes shocking confessions. You realize that bad girls can be single or married, old or young, embarrassed or proud of their transgressions. This book also reminded me that sometimes being bad can be something very simple, like playing music too loud or driving too fast or putting off the housework for one more day. Sometimes being bad can actually be very liberating.
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