Each chapter of GIRLS® focuses on a common anxiety in adolescent girls’ lives, from insecurities about our faces and bodies, to our reputation and social status, to our friendships and romantic relationships. Along the way, India traces how rapidly culture and technology have evolved over the past decade.
We need a new voice for women ... Sadly, Girls® has no answer for our problems – old or new ... India has been led to 'adopt a stance that looks very much like quietism and retreat' ... India fell victim to what she has criticised. Her book has been sucked into the commodification vortex through massive PR campaigns. Without social media, it’s unlikely that she would have blown up in the same way as Naomi Wolf had over three decades ago ... It is a shame that Girls® falls to this irony.
Readers of India’s Substack, also called Girls (50,000 subscribers and counting), will know that she’s a compelling stylist, able to briskly marshal the facts of her case and deliver her conclusions in firecracker prose. But what works as a newsletter begins to fray when expanded to book length ... Very specific about the ills of modern life. It’s less clear about what the alternatives should be, although India offers some hints in the conclusion ... If you want to really understand today’s girls, take India’s advice and go into the real world. There are plenty of reasons to worry for girls, but there are also plenty of reasons to be hopeful.
India is less concerned with offering alternatives than laying out quite how impactful digital culture has been on her generation ... Objects on a conceptual level, not digging in.
