cover image The Fierce Beauty Club: Girlfriends Discovering Power and Celebrating Body and Soul

The Fierce Beauty Club: Girlfriends Discovering Power and Celebrating Body and Soul

Elizabeth Herron. Element Books, $22.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-1-86204-787-7

The fiction-writing edict ""show, don't tell"" works well for Herron in this chronicle of eight real women, ages 22 to 71, who meet regularly at an oceanfront art studio in Santa Barbara to talk about their lives, problems, desires, dreams and what it means to be female. In such ""girlfriend groups,"" the author claims, women can rediscover their ""feminine soul."" Herron worries that women have lost ""the motherline,"" a group of female elders who traditionally helped initiate them into adulthood. (Herron's own mother died when she was 12, possibly influencing her concern over ""the disruption of the fabric of female community."") Though Herron sometimes slips into a blanket criticism of feminism and into generalized assumptions about women's traits and desires, her group of ""fierce beauties"" does provide a rare model of mutual support. A young wife learns to take responsibility for her own sexuality; a middle-aged woman responds to her husband's affair; a bed-and-breakfast manager buys her own hotel; a septuagenarian has her first ""fling"" since her husband's death; an accountant becomes a full-time artist; a business executive travels to Africa, takes up photography and quits her job. Many such stories of female empowerment flow through Herron's nine-step program ""to help women love and believe in themselves."" Complete with ""Fierce Beauty Tips,"" this glimpse of women's honest thoughts and feelings is part slumber party and part study of goddess/feminine archetypes. As such, it may help ease readers' sense of isolation and disrespect in society, even if it doesn't fulfill Herron's wish of spawning a plethora of new ""girlfriend groups."" Agent, Tom Grady. (May)