Product Description
A survival guide for teenage girls. Top tips from over 1000 young women Bullies. Cliques. Peer pressure. Teenage girls have had enough! Mean Chicks, Cliques, and Dirty Tricks is the first book to give teenage girls the lowdown on everyday issues in today's tough girl world, from gossip to gangs. Girl guru "Dr. Erika" has talked to more than 1,000 girls about the major issues in their lives and compiled lots of fun and useful information to help smart girls empower themselves against mean chicks: First Facts - breaks down the attitudes and symptoms of mean chicks Cool quotes - offers advice and real-life lessons from girls around the globe Pop quizzes - helps determine who could be targets of mean-chick behaviour Power points - fun sayings and proverbs from smart people to give girls hope Rx - advice to help girls remedy bad situations With amazing facts and awesome attitude, Mean Chicks, Cliques, and Dirty Tricks helps teenagers gather the girl power they need to survive and thrive!

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 15 reviews)

Good for opening a conversation, some good advice, but... barely deeper than a "very special episode" of your favorite sitcom

I have a daughter on the cusp of middle school, when the girls are just starting to get into the familiar patterns of female-to-female relational aggression so common at that stage. I ordered this book figuring perhaps it would be a good resource for her for dealing with some of these issues. I have read several books for adults that deal with these issues ("Reviving Ophelia," "Odd Girl Out," "Queen Bees and Wannabes" and such), but they tend to lack practical advice for the girls in the midst of these things.

This book is geared, instead, toward the girl facing this world on a daily basis. Overall, I think it's a decent resource, with a description of the behaviors a girl is likely to encounter, advice for how to deal with them, quizzes, examples of how other girl dealt with things...

There were, though, some things that keep me from giving this book a better rating. I think the suggestions were pretty simplistic, and while not as bad as simply saying "ignore them and eventually they'll leave them alone," they didn't really go into the REAL consequences of taking some of the recommended stands from the book. The author makes it sound as if once a girl rattles off a speech from the book, the "mean chicks" will leave her alone... which isn't quite the reality most of us have encountered. I'm not saying any of it is bad advice, I just think it paints a rosy picture of how quickly and easily these things work.

Another thing that bothered me was how much time was spent on excusing the offending girls' behaviors. The gossip should be embraced for her exceptional story telling skills, the bully should be pitied because she's probably being bullied at home, and so on. These may be true in some cases, but it's such a simple after school special way of looking at the world - get to the root of this other girl's issue and she'll suddenly be miss congeniality. Everything seems neatly wrapped up in a bow far too frequently in the book.

(The other annoyance was the pop culture references and attempts at slang which rapidly date an otherwise still contemporary book. It's hard enough for adult editors at magazines to keep up with this without sounding ridiculous to teens and adults... the shelf life of a book makes it all the more pronounced.)

All in all, I would recommend this as a conversation starter and to give some guidance to a girl who occasionally encounters rough behavior, but if you have - or are - a child who is truly bullied on a day-to-day basis, don't expect a life changing experience.
June 24, 2008

Erika tells it all n spiced it with her sense of humor!!!

"It couldn't be better written than this!!! A great book for teens, and a Plus for parents to get to understand their girls what they go through in their academic life; although we all go through bullying; however, time changes and new "Tricks" are often created. That's Erika I know of, happy! happy! happy! and trying to share her laughter, love and self confidence to all..I like the qoutations at the beginning of every chapter, it gives the "bullied" or "victim" a sense of courage in handling the "Mean Chicks""
Erika summarizes her "Power of Several" by recommending to the girls more books, magazines, and internet resources to help them get "through the day with Smarts and Style"..Well done, Erika!!!
June 02, 2008

very useful

This book has the ability to connect with the girls experiencing the negative clique effects, not just her parents. I recommend it highly
February 19, 2008

Mean chicks, cliques, and dirty tricks

Wonderful help for a 13 year old daughter. She read it with great interest and I feel it helped her understand some of the problems she is experiencing as a 13 year old
January 11, 2007

A Must for Girls!

This book is a must for all young girls. This book is "real" and is a great foundation for developing character for young girls who must deal with the rough tough meaness of the female world. It validates the sad reality and garbage stuff that's really going on among young girls.
November 10, 2006

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