The Power of Beauty

April 29, 1996
Bestselling author Friday (My Mother/My Self) here turns in a hefty, ambitious tome, an uneasy mix of cultural analysis, autobiographical confessional, pop psychology and sexology, loosely built around the theme of society's overvaluation of personal appearance and physical beauty. She ruefully notes women's dissatisfaction with their bodies; boys and men, she observes, are less involved in their looks. Scolding feminists for abandoning the quest for women's sexual freedom, she paradoxically argues that they should stop debunking beauty and instead recognize its pervasive influence in our lives and make better use of it. There is much here on women's culturally conditioned sexual guilt and self-hatred, girls' suppressed rage at their mothers, adult erotic fantasies--themes familiar to readers of Friday's previous books. She also comments in passing on a multitude of topics from fashion and the beauty industry to incest, envy, popular movies, women in the workplace, Hillary Clinton, the swinging 1960s and sibling rivalry. While devoted fans will be captivated, others may be stupefied by a free-floating meditation filled with capsule summaries of other writers, facile generalizations, platitudes and repetitive gush. $175,000 ad/promo; translation rights: HarperCollins; author tour.

September 1, 1996
Despite its footnotes, bibliography, and length, this is not a scholarly work. Instead, Friday (My Mother/Myself, LJ 9/15/77) has produced another pop psychology book offering little, if any, new insights into the importance of physical appearance. Friday blames mothers for warping their daughters' views of themselves; announces that beauty is still a power in the world; and asserts that there is a double standard when it comes to society's views on aging. Friday does not analyze in terms of class or ethnicity and, apparently inspired to write based on her own upbringing, regularly conflates her own experience with that of all women. Recommended only for public libraries with a demand for Friday's books or with large women's studies collections.--Sharon Firestone, Arizona State Univ. Libs., Tempe

May 1, 1996
Readers expecting this volume to contain Friday's usual mix of pop psychology and erotic letters will find only the psychology. The book's purpose is ostensibly to examine the role beauty plays in society and, in particular, to focus on the juxtaposition of beauty and power. Ironically, "unfocused" is the operative word here. The interminably long book is an odd jumble of Friday's personal history, a survey of modern feminism, and a rehash of what the author has written in previous books about males, mothers, and, of course, sex. Free-flowing might be a charitable way to describe the prose. Quotes from Freud and from the lead singer of Nine Inch Nails sit uncomfortably on the page alongside what appears to be Friday's random thoughts on just about anything. Someone along the way should have pointed out that Friday had some interesting ideas here--enough for a magazine article. Unfortunately, when a magazine piece balloons into a more than 400-page book, the results are rarely pretty. Expect the author's name recognition and an attendant media blitz to generate requests, but don't expect satisfied readers, especially those who opened the book anticipating an up-market version of the "Penthouse" letters column. ((Reviewed May 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)