OUR BODIES OURSELVES, most definitely.

Peg o my heart - One of my daughters was very heavy from about 12 on. “She’s Come Undone” saved her life at one point. And it was written by a man! I just can’t imagine that kind of talent.

I would sincerely hope that by the age of 21 a young girl has already found her favorite for of writing - and also been open enough to explore others. Asking to pick one book would be like asking what you would tell a young woman is the most important thing she needs to know for her future happiness. Life is like a candy store - she needs to try everything in the store to see what she likes, and then savor her favorites.

I became a reader at a young age. Of course I was impressed with Jane Eyre, Little Women, The Bobsey Twins, Pride and Pejudice and others like this. But it was when I read the Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and then Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth that I knew I was a woman and not a child any longer.

I started reading when I was about 5 or 6. I can’t remember what particular book I was reading but when I was about 10 I started reading Shakespeare’s works from Merchant of Venice to Romeo and Juliet. Also the poems of Elizabeth Barret-Browning, Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and Poe’s The Raven. An eclectic choice to say the least. And that was before my 21st birthday!

‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ is what I’d recommend.

Personally I found Lady Chatterly’s Lover very inspiration at that age!

A PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE, by Rick Warren

At age 21, I had two children. I would have liked to have read by then a nonexistent book, which I recommend now to all young women. Here are the chapters (order not yet finalized): 1 My Mother/Myself (Friday) 2 Fat as a Feminist Issue (Orbach) 3 Working Smart (LeBoeuf) 4 Games Mother Never Taught You (Harragan) 5 Descent of Woman (Morgan) 6 The Assertive Woman (Phelps) 7 Against Our Will (Brownmiller) 8 Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman)

The Bible. It’s got it all!

I’d recommend “He’s just not that into you” and “The Rules.” Both of these books are about relationships. I’m 48 and read these two book a few years ago, and WOW. I wish I would have read them years ago to help me in understanding relationships. There is always “Women are from Mars and Men are from Venus” and “You just don’t understand.” They also are great books in understanding the opposite sex. Women have to deal with husbands, sons, uncles, and most bosses in the business world. Getting a leg up will help. In all fairness, you’ve read “Jane Eyre” several times, but I read “The Black Stallion” a dozen or more times.

The Bible

jane eyre is about the greatest romance novel ever written..makes one want to run out a grab a ‘rochester’ of their own…has anyone actually read ‘phantom of the opera’….or ‘dracula’, or, ‘gone with the wind’…i am emphatically NOT a ‘modern’ romance novel reader…just too smarmy…stick with the classics….