Queen Bees and Wannabes

Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence

By: Rosalind Wiseman

Narrated by: Lee Adams

Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

"My daughter used to be so wonderful. Now I can barely stand her and she won’t tell me anything. How can I find out what’s going on?"

"There’s a clique in my daughter’s grade that’s making her life miserable. She doesn’t want to go to school anymore. Her own supposed friends are turning on her, and she’s too afraid to do anything. What can I do?"

Welcome to the wonderful world of your daughter’s adolescence. A world in which she comes to school one day to find that her friends have suddenly decided that she no longer belongs. Or she’s teased mercilessly for wearing the wrong outfit or having the wrong friend. Or branded with a reputation she can’t shake. Or pressured into conforming so she won’t be kicked out of the group. For better or worse, your daughter’s friendships are the key to enduring adolescence - as well as the biggest threat to her well-being.

In her groundbreaking book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, Empower cofounder Rosalind Wiseman takes you inside the secret world of girls' friendships. Wiseman has spent more than a decade listening to thousands of girls talk about the powerful role cliques play in shaping what they wear and say, how they respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid, insightful book, she dissects each role in the clique: Queen Bees, Wannabes, Messengers, Bankers, Targets, Torn Bystanders, and more. She discusses girls' power plays, from birthday invitations to cafeteria seating arrangements and illicit parties. She takes listeners into "Girl World" to analyze teasing, gossip, and reputations; beauty and fashion; alcohol and drugs; boys and sex; and more, and how cliques play a role in every situation.

Each chapter includes "Check Your Baggage" sections to help you identify how your own background and biases affect how you see your daughter. "What You Can Do to Help" sections offer extensive sample scripts, bulleted lists, and other easy-to-use advice to get you inside your daughter’s world and help you to help her.

It’s not just about helping your daughter make it alive out of junior high. This book will help you understand how your daughter’s relationships with friends and cliques sets the stage for other intimate relationships as she grows and guides her when she has tougher choices to make about intimacy, drinking and drugs, and other hazards. With its revealing look into the secret world of teenage girls and cliques, enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and a much-needed sense of humor, Queen Bees and Wannabes will equip you with all the tools you need to build the right foundation to help your daughter make smarter choices and empower her during this baffling, tumultuous time of life.

©2011 Rosalind WIseman (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Laced with humor, insight, and practical suggestions, Queen Bees and Wannabes is the one volume that's been missing from the growing shelf of girl-centered publications. Wiseman explains the inner workings of teen culture and teaches parents, educators, and peers how to respond." (Whitney Ransome and Meg Miln Moulton, executive directors, National Coalition of Girls’ Schools)

Audio Book is 2002 edition

Would you try another book from Rosalind Wiseman and/or Lee Adams?

Yes

Any additional comments?

This book was an older edition. I needed it for a class I was taking. The one I purchased was the newer edition and the updated chapters were not in the audible version.

Interesting but slightly outdated.

The content with be relevant forever but many things have changed over the past 16 years. Social media has added an entire layer of nightmare on the issues facing adolescent girls, and it would be nice to get an updated version of this book that reflects that.

Old version

Helpful book but this audiobook is the 2002 edition not the 2009. Please get the 2009 version on audiobook. New content about social media is very important.

A Good Book about Girl Cliques not about Parenting

Any additional comments?

This book has good information. It is a bit long and tough to get through at times. Mothers will probably have a better time listening than fathers, as several times she has the readers remember what it was like when they were young women. She has a few moments where she will spotlight fathers telling them this point or action is a time for them to shine. Her knowledge is fairly solid but her parenting skills are lacking. Being a new step-parent with never having kids, I have delved voraciously into the parenting books. She gives parenting advice that is contrary to several of the books I've read. She is an expert on teenage girl sociology not on parenting. So read this book for information on girl sociology. If you want a book on parenting, read "How to talk to so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk;" they even have a special teen version - although the original is just as fine.

Really Mean Girls!

Having watched Mean Girls and seeing this title I was intrigued. I decided to purchase the book expecting to see some of the comedy that Tina Fey had utilized in the movie. What I found was a wonderful book that really describes what girls face. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and I have recommended this book to two mothers already.

Not the Updated version

Either check out the 3rd edition in print, or wait for a new audio book to be released. This version completely ignores cell phones and social media because it was written before girls had complete access to technology. The author talks about your girls getting their information from "teen magazines and MTV" and uses examples of girls calling home from different phones before caller ID. It's like my mom wrote this book in the 80s.

Useful, insightful, may even be a blessing in order to understand what's really going on in girl- and boy-world

This book is excellent. I bookmarked many places and intend to listen to it many times. The reasons I didn't give it five stars: 1) it needs to be updated to include cell phone usage and cyber- bullying information. The author is stuck in a very obvious time warp from the "pre-cell phone/cyber prevalent" era. 2) I also have the kindle book and there were times when I wanted to reference on my kindle what the narrator was saying but the chapters of the book don't match up with the chapters of the audiobook. I found this really annoying. 3) on occasions throughout the book the author gives examples of real-life girl-world scenarios to preface her chapters but doesn't go back and illustrate how to handle those specific situations i.e. finish out the example scenario based on the information she gave us in that chapter.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has a daughter or son. Don't wait to read it: read it while your child is in elementary school.

Here we go with the "racism"

Couldn't get halfway through this without "racism" being the cause of how girls feel about themselves. Thanks a lot, Leftists & Democrats. I just stopped listening. Not worth the time.

Excellent guide to navigating life with your teenage girl

I found the descriptions of the queen bees and all the other positions very interesting and easy to recognize. The only problem with listening to a book is not being able to go back and understand the terminology. I may have to get this in print so I can look up the useful conversation starters and things to say and not say to your daughter.

Must read for anyone dealing with Girls

As a parent of an up and coming tween and someone who works with 15 and 16 year old girls this book was eye opening and spot on!