Parents' Guide to

Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl

By Andrea Beach, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Teen's positive turnaround mixes with iffy beauty message.

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Faye's hard life is powerfully conveyed. There are enlightening, age-appropriate explanations of how exactly low self-esteem can lead to promiscuous behavior and how stealing and violence can be about trying to gain power in society instead of about needing money.

Over the course of REVENGE OF A NOT-SO-PRETTY GIRL, Faye matures to a remarkable degree, and it appears to she's going to be much better off than we could have expected. But she thoroughly buys into the beauty myth that girls have to be good-looking to succeed, and nothing in the book suggests she may be wrong about that. No alternative ways women might have value to society are offered, and the point is driven home when Faye finally begins to feel better about herself after a boy tells her he thinks she's pretty.

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