“Intimate, raw, and relatable.”
Purchase The Perils Of Girlhood
The Perils of Girlhood
Written by Melissa Fraterrigo | 2025
Published by University of Nebraska Press
Like many girls growing up in the eighties and nineties, Melissa Fraterrigo leaned on popular culture to transition from childhood to adolescence and beyond. Judy Blume told stories about girls embracing their imperfections and Madonna encouraged bold moves. But Fraterrigo’s experiences with dating and attempts to refashion her body through diet and exercise left her feeling far from empowered.
It wasn’t until Fraterrigo became a mother to twin daughters and they began their own self-criticisms that she questioned how she might help them navigate their own girlhoods.
A handsome swim coach’s advances, an anxious daughter soothes her father’s temper, the history of Mace, and a college student’s frightening harassment, are some of the memories that shape Fraterrigo’s worldview as an adult. The Perils of Girlhood shows how the subconscious messages that wrought a generation played out in one life and also celebrates the friendships that make every stage of the journey worthwhile. Written with lyricism and insight, these personal narratives provide a reckoning and a reclamation. And while they developed from Fraterrigo’s desire to guide her daughters, they speak universal truths that compel us to consider how best to bring all of our daughters into the future.
Praise for The Perils Of Girlhood
“Womanhood and motherhood, it seems, were even more fraught than girlhood. Intimate, raw, and relatable, Fraterrigo’s narrative of navigating life’s challenges vibrates with individual choices and reassures with universal truths. Yes, there are dangers in being a girl and becoming a woman, but Fraterrigo assures there are delights, too.” ~ Carol Haggas, Booklist, STARRED review
“Fraterrigo’s memoir asks you to listen, share, and continue the whispers that become rally cries that every day change what it means to be a girl. There will always be a creepy guy, that will never change, but the terror of that, the increased heart beat, the rise of adrenaline, the fumbling for keys as weapons or mace or phones can be lessened by allowing the monsters to be monsters instead of demonizing their prey. We are not yours, Fraterrigo reminds us, we owe you nothing, we belong to no one but ourselves.” ~ Caroline Huftalen, Buskingattheseams
“This gorgeous, shattering, hopeful, sorrowful, soulful book is about the perils (and glories) of girlhood, yes, but also of motherhood and daughterhood, womanhood, life. I dare anyone to read it without a frequent—maybe constant— shiver of oh yes, me too. Whether Melissa Fraterrigo is writing about the excruciations of adolescence, the highs and lows of love and marriage, self-image, friendship, extreme dieting, or the daily just-below-the-surface drumbeat of worry that’s so often baked into motherhood (not an inclusive list!), she is writing from the heart, beautifully and heartbreakingly and oh-so-smartly.” ~ Michelle Herman, author of If You Say So
“In this striking collection, Melissa Fraterrigo offers intimate essays examining her youthful fears and desires and the complex challenges facing her now, as she parents twin girls. The Perils of Girlhood is an essential meditation on how we raise our daughters, in a voice that is clear, honest, and wise.”~ Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
“This collection is a subtle subversion of the conservative political narrative that women’s lives are inconsequential, and somehow interchangeable. These compelling essays about sexuality, home life, coming of age, and the interior life are not always in-your-face, but are always in-your-soul.”~Sue William Silverman, author, Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul
“Through a crystalline rendering of an eighties girlhood (bran cereal and the Barbie Style Head, Judy Blume and Jean M. Auel, aerosol hairspray and Zinka, Judd Nelson and Rob Lowe, too much exercise and too little food) and onward into a writing career and motherhood, the essays in Melissa Fraterrigo’s The Perils of Girlhood navigate the complexity of a life lived in a female body with the kind of clarity and empathy that both brings me back—I mean, Fraterrigo gets me—and helps me to see a way forward.” ~Jill Christman, author of If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays
“Melissa Fraterrigo writes of a friend, "Near her, everything loosens and I feel sixteen again," which is how I feel reading (and rereading) The Perils of Girlhood. How I wish this book had been given to me when I was a girl—to make sense of the simmering frustrations with wanting and resenting male attention, with accepting others' anger while denying one's own, with trying to be agreeable and likeable and perfect. The Perils of Girlhood is a necessary book that I will recommend for years to come.”~ Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl.
“Recounted in frenzied flights, Fraterrigo describes a time of her life marked by scissor-kicks and Tupperware containers filled with lettuce leaves.…In this becoming, Fraterrigo grows… into someone more expansive, someone living for more than just beauty and order and acclaim, but for the life of another.”~ Anna Rollins, Mom Egg Review
“When my memory and fight-or-flight response urge me to flee, I must remind myself to take a deep breath. I am encouraged to write more about this after reading your pieces. I hope we can heal together, and that writing has helped you on your healing journey. Thank you for The Perils of Girlhood. It is an incredibly special collection, ripe with emotion. I am honored to have read it.” ~ Carlin Steere, Sweet, A Literary Confection