What Girls Learn by Karin Cook

I chose the book What Girls Learn by Karin Cook, because the title itself struck me. Learning! because i'm at the age that still learning how to live life but of course that's a never ending process. as long as we are still alive, we learn. And it also shows Mother and Daughter relationship that's why the book caught me, i know that somehow i can relate to the story because i'm close with my mother. 

Told from the perspective of a 13 year old girl Tilden, this story about a single mother with two daughters who moves, marries, and dies of breast cancer handles a variety of difficult issues with sensitivity and spunk. A list of those issues--absent father, new stepfather, a thousand-mile move to a new social environment, first menstruation, sibling rivalry, an uncle with incestuous impulses, family secrets, sexual experimentation, cancer, and death--might make it sound like a catalogue of the trials of a ordinary young adulthood, but in fact the point of view of Tilden, the main character, keeps the story grounded in very believable and very relatable, recognizable truth about what it is to come into awarenessin the stage of adult life.

The mother's cancer is narrated largely in terms of Tilden's experience of it: secrecy, eventual disclosure, partial information, losses of intimacy, feelings of betrayal, confusion about caregivers' roles, and in the middle of it all, the ordinary idea of early adolescence. The generous and understanding stepfather and neighbors with limited but ready sympathies lighten some of the novel's sad themes.

Have you ever thought, “I’m never going to get cancer?” Well, I’m pretty sure that’s how all of us in the world think because none of us want to be put in that position since it’s a scary yet a dangerous thing to deal with. In my book, ‘What Girls learn,’ by Karin Cook, it never occurred to Frances that she would be endangered by breast cancer. I've learn from the book that we have to be brave to live and experience everything, i mean. we are here in this planet to feel every feeling, Love at every opportunity you are given to love. Be less afraid. Embrace each day, Cry when you need to. Laugh when you need to. and then everything works out in the end. But always remember that in every decision we will make we have to think, Be wise in making decisions. Next is Love for our family, this book made me look at how family oriented i'am and how i treat my sister and my mother. This book showed pure sibling relationship, misunderstanding rivalry and many more, it showed the connection between siblings. Mother and Daughter relationship, it showed that Mothers are the best teacher. that we can really learn a lot from them, that we should value everything that they say. that we should obey them because they've experience a lot. The next is Death, that's what got into my mind when i got into the part where they found out that Frances knew about her cancer. because we don't know when will be our time, i'm not afraid of death but i'm afraid or worried if i'm with it, if my existence is enough if i got the chance to make it to the end of God's plan for me. 

"Karin Cook is a bright light on the horizon of new writers. Her sensitivity and honesty about the struggles of female adolescents are unusually insightful. I have no doubt that she will be one of the cherished storytellers" - Naomi Wolf, author The Beauty Myth and Fire with Five

"The bittersweet novel opens with the intimacy of a family of women and ends in a rich complex of relationships: Tragic at times, often adversarial, but always loving. A poginant story written with a keen understanding of loss" - Pearl Abraham, author of The Romance Reader 

"Telling a story of betrayal without bitterness is a real feat, and Cook has the tools: The Deftness and Authority, the sly humor to pull it off beautifully. This is an unusually fine portrayal of lost innocence and sisterhood under stress" - Jonathan Franzen, author of Strong Motion  

Cook writes clean and direct prose, infused with just the right amount of the aggressive innocence and lyricism with which adolescents often see the world. Only occasionally does Tilden's wisdom seem artificial, the sage intrusion of some older voice. But because Cook has firm and nice control of her material, the novel succeeds in avoiding the cliches of its potentially melodramatic subject matter. Cook's clear eye is unbend by false sentimentality, and her ear is seriously pitched to domestic dialogue. An promising debut. brilliant debut novel, What Girls Learn takes me on an intimate and haunting journey into the girlhood and the complex area of the family. Wise, bittersweet, and above all intensely human, this absolutely powerful novel it carried me away with its humor and insight even as it breaks their hearts. 



this novel became a movie too back in 2001, starring Elizabeth Perkins as Frances/Mama, Scott Bakula as Nick, Alison Pill as Tilden, Margo Martildale as Lainey and Tamara Hope as Elizabeth. it was directed by Lee Rose.