The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order

Title: The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order

Edited By: Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller

Publisher: Penguin Books 1999

Genre: Nonfiction

Pages: 376

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Perpetual - Feminism; Mount TBR

Both a literary magazine and a chronicle of girl culture, Bust was born in 1993. With contributors who are funny, fierce, and too smart to be anything but feminist, Bust is the original grrrl zine, with a base of loyal female fans--all those women who know that Glamour is garbage, Vogue is vapid, and Cosmo is clueless.The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order contains brand new, funny, sharp, trenchant essays along with some of the best writings from the magazine: Courtney Love's (unsolicited) piece on Bad Girls; the already immortal "Dont's For Boys"; an interview with girl-hero Judy Blume; and lots of other shocking, titillating, truthful articles. A kind of Our Bodies, Ourselves for Generation XX, The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order is destined to become required reading for today's hip urban girl and her admirers.

A reread from way back when I bought this at the end of high school. And I'm disappointed. Most of the essays in here are way too dated to enjoy 18 years late. The whole "grrrl zine" thing is super grating to my 35 year old ears. I just can't get over the Spice Girls-ness of the whole collection. There may be some good essays in there, but overall I just couldn't get over the book screaming at my "It's 1999!"