Elizabeth Wurtzel - Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women

The Good

One of the more honest, insightful, and witty books on the subject of women to have come along in a while. The New York Times Book Review

The Courtney Love of letters extraordinarily thought-provoking, absorbing, wise, often poignant. You can disagree with Wurtzel, but at least she always has a definite point of view. Entertainment Weekly

Wurtzel is truly a Wunderkind. Shes brilliant, original, outspoken This is a big, brash, and bountiful book. Booklist (starred review)

Its got the preposterous energy of a great, drunken tantrum, and a voluptuous, sprawling style, with lots of good, zinging jokes The Village Voice Literary Supplement

This promiscuous rampage through the raw stuff of popular culture is as outrageous, suggestive and difficult as the post-feminist role-model it takes as its subject. A vastly entertaining, at times virtuosic rant Esquire (U.K.)

The history of female manipulation as told by the baddest, brainiest babe from Generation X for all her bitchy poses and sassy one-liners, she still comes across as someone who is generous, fun, thoughtful andirony of ironiesnice. The Express (London)

Wurtzel is an intelligent writer fast-paced and convincing. The Daily Telegraph (London)

Bitch is a brilliant feminist manifesto in the great tradition that stretches from Mary Wollstonecraft to Germaine Greer. Elaine Showalter in The Guardian (London)

[Wurtzel] drops phrases that are surgically funny in their incisiveness. Depending on the occasion, Wurtzel can be catty, opinionated, empathetic or scurrilous, but always with a backbone of solid research. Publishers Weekly

Bitch is a show-stopping, name-dropping, gossip-dishing, wild rock-n-roll performance [Wurtzels] analogies, similes and metaphors are wildly exuberant, and exciting This is a bitch of a book. Washington Post

Thoughtful analysis, a lot of entertaining information, and a good deal of clever writing Wurtzels talent for provocative prose and sexy subjects perfectly lends itself to a screed on female power. Kirkus Reviews

Certainly, Wurtzel has her finger, even her middle one, on something here. USA Today

The Bad

The Blonde in the Bleachers takes Hillary Clinton over the sticks for underachieving. A tiring read. Time Out (London)

It is unclear why Wurtzel, a prodigiously gifted, if outrageously self-involved, writer, believes that this tawdry story, which has long since been picked clean of any insights, merits yet more parsing. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Her aggressively chatty book reads like a dorm-room bull session, rambling from Delilah to Anne Sexton to Courtney Love to Nicole Brown Simpsonall difficult women of extremely different sortswithout really presenting a definition or an argument Along with the old feminism she has so gladly jettisoned, she has abandoned any attempt at polite sisterhood. San Francisco Chronicle

The next installment in The World According to Liz puts Wurtzel in serious contention to usurp Camille Paglia as the loudmouthed loose cannon of pseudo-intellectual, quasi-feminist cultural criticism. New Times Los Angeles

Wurtzels reductive theorizing, coupled with her penchant for posing in half-naked states of repose, established her mainly as hot damaged goods self-flagellation, as Wurtzel can attest, is a hell of a career move. Spin

Prozac Nation established Wurtzel as the voice of all self-centered, self-pitying own-worst-enemies. Her new book is that much more proof that shes the right woman for the job. Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Bitch is, more or less, a meandering lamentation on the fate of irrepressible women, those too angry, too tormented, too selfish While Wurtzels plaint is heartfelt, it isnt more than that. The book is all shapeless feeling. Time

One wants to say: Please shut up, because Wurtzel rambles endlessly, making points and then abandoning them, piling up plots and song lyrics and media detritus, pausing now and then to opine on various things These struttings and preenings suggest that she prefers her audience prone, passive and awestruck. When I finally put this book down, my overwhelming feeling was one of relief at having been released from such a confining role. The Nation

The books glimpses of truth are unnerving, mostly because they close the distance between themselves and Bitchs exceedingly distraught author. Time Out New York

Wurtzels second book, Bitch, is not a good book After the introduction, Bitch disintegrates quickly into a rant. In most of the book there is no method to Wurtzels affected madness. New York Press

Hip turns of phrase frequently replace logic in this often smug and overwritten screed. In her defense, Wurtzel has taken on a huge project, and every now and again she introduces a startling insight about how women manipulate situations to control their lives Recommended only as catalyst for debate. Library Journal

The Bitchy

What follows can ultimately be judged by its cover: saucy, sassy, but ultimately rather silly Wowwhat a bitch. The Wall Street Journal

One wants to scream at the cover picture, Damn, honey, no ones gonna confuse you with a beauty queen, either. Bitch begets bitchiness. Salon

Ostensibly a book about bitchy women throughout history, it is really a bitchy book about one woman: the author herself. Swing

Bottom line: Rambling, self-important dog of a book. People

I find myself flip-flopping between sympathizing with and wanting to muzzle the mercurial Wurtzel. Louisa Kamps, Mirabella

The Bottom Line

Like demanding women, pathbreaking and impossible to dismiss. Ms.

It will absolutely make you furious. Yet while you may want to bash Bitch or burn it, I dare you to put it down for long. Theres something about itso bold, so bald?thats just so good. Hartford Courant

Wurtzel is insouciant. And thats the reason many loathe and others like her book. Boston Globe

Also by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Prozac Nation

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 1999

Copyright 1998 by Elizabeth Wurtzel

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday in 1998.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday hardcover edition as follows:
Wurtzel, Elizabeth.
Bitch : in praise of difficult women / Elizabeth Wurtzel. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. WomenBiography. 2. Femmes fatalesBiography. I. Title.
HQ1123.W87 1998
920.72dc21

97-52106

eISBN: 978-0-307-82988-7