Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

Read my entire review of Peggy Orenstein’s fourth book about princess culture on Bookslut.

Peggy Orenstein’s fourth book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, chronicles the author’s journey through America’s princess culture with her young daughter, Daisy. Beginning with Disney princesses, Orenstein comes to examine American Girl dolls, the “tween” market, Miley Cyrus, social media, beauty pageants, and of course, Barbie, all in the united effort to best understand the decisions she is making for her daughter. Acknowledging early on in Cinderella Ate My Daughter the tumultuous battlefield of potential body issues, poor self-esteem, rampant sexism, and gender essentialist impositions, Orenstein opens her book with an awareness for the road ahead in raising a girl.

This facetious and colorful portrait of modern, upper-class living in the highly posh and breastfeeding-friendly Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn features the lives of four mommies: Melora, Rebecca, Lizzie, and Karen. Caught up in the grown-up dilemmas of Brooklyn real estate, private nursery schools, and play dates, these droll women move about such true-to-life locations as the Park Slope Food Coop, Union Street, the Tea Lounge, and of course Prospect Park. The novel’s protagonists have all found themselves somewhat disappointed in motherhood, referring to their state as “limbo” as they watch their children “parallel play.” Gossip is tangible in Park Slope, and as the mothers attempt to reach out to one another for friendship, or simply to satisfy their own boredom, they are continually confronted with dysfunctional marriages, identity crises, and addictions to prescription pills.  A sort of more sharply written Valley of the Dolls for motherhood, Prospect Park West goes for the dirt and sex but without relying on it.

Laying out a refreshing model for pop-fiction writing, Amy Sohn talks up to her reader, expecting you to keep up as well-known actress and mommy, Melora, pickpockets from a local Park Slope dad or engages in some surly public behavior with a director. The novel moves quickly from brownstone to café to playground, all the while seamlessly integrating such real Brooklynites as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Saarsgaard. Unafraid to decimate any notions of a deliriously fulfilling  child-rearing experience, Sohn works outward from her mothers’s insane personality quirks, ticks, and flaws to ultimately expose them in all their regret and frustration.

Prospect Park West is salaciously articulate: a local gossip rag written by the smartest girl on the block. Sohn displays mastery of her neighborhood, characters, and plot, pulling together the most unexpected scenarios in a seemingly peaceful community.

To read more about Amy Sohn, click here.