cover image Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World

Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World

Dan Kindlon. Rodale Press, $25.95 (300pp) ISBN 978-1-59486-255-7

Bestselling coauthor of Raising Cain, a look at the emotional lives of boys, Kindlon's new subject is the ""young woman who is destined to be a leader. She is talented, highly motivated, and self-confident."" These alpha girls, Kindlon suggests, gain a sense of emancipation from the accomplishments of their mothers, a sense that was lacking in previous generations: as a post-feminist cohort, ""they are the living, breathing embodiments of the inner revolution that women in the last generations so ardently desired and fought for."" Buttressed by well-organized informational charts, Kindlon's lucid look into the social and psychological world of these young leaders is well-paced and includes substantive interviews with the alpha girls themselves. In addition to providing an inside look into the alpha girls' lives, and the feminist tradition which they inherit, Kindlon's work explores the relationships alpha girls have with the men in their lives-fathers and boyfriends, mostly-particularly in collegiate and post-collegiate life. With comprehensive chapters on alpha girls at work, in love and in the family, this study is a must-have for anyone looking to understand the upcoming generation's driven, confident and successful females.