She’s Not Having It

Dierdre Donahue goes after the first novel Anthropology of an American Girl in today’s USA Today, while asking why it connected with young women (as attested to by both Entertainment Weekly and the The Wall Street Journal) in its original 2003 self-published form (it’s been re-edited and re-released by Spiegel and Grau, the the boutique imprint of Random House). Donahue likens the experience of reading this book about a young woman’s coming of age, to being “trapped inside the secret diary of a super-cool narcissist with a titanium-strength ego that no plot twist can dent.”

In The Washington Post, Carolyn See was much more charitable, saying the book is a “very respectable and serious descendant of the work of D.H. Lawrence.” although she’d like it better if it were a little less serious. Nonetheless, she “finished this book with regret. Hamann has put together a carefully devised, coherent world, filled with opinions that need to be spoken — and heard.”

Several libraries own the original, 2003 edition as well as the new one. Holds are heavy (10:1) on light ordering.

Anthropology of an American Girl
Hilary Thayer Hamann
Retail Price: $26.00
Hardcover: 624 pages
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau – (2010-05-25)
ISBN / EAN: 0385527144 / 9780385527149

Books on Tape; UNABR; 20 CDs; Narrator: Rebecca Lowman (Amer.); 9780307736321; $60
OverDrive WMA Audiobook, MP3 Audiobook and Adobe EPUB eBook

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