LIKED, by Kari Kampakis

This book is part memoir and part why-to or how-to. It's targeted to today's girls. A New York Times bestseller, the author dedicated this book to her daughters. The book uses an attractive, custom font for the Table of Contents. Kampakis begins this book with an Introduction. Then she writes her book in ten chapters. Each chapter has subheadings. She begins each chapter with a quote. The book includes brief quotes in sidebars, occasionally. Then she ends each chapter with questions for the individual reader's self-examination. The author follows her story and advice with a Conclusion, notes referencing sources she uses for her book, and acknowledgements. She wraps it all up with her author bio. Kampakis is a blogger, author, speaker, and newspaper columnist. Her first book, 10 Ultimate Truths Girls Should Know, has been used all over the U.S. by teen youth groups and small groups, to build girls up in their faith. This author's work has been featured in The Huffington Post, TODAY Parents, and other national publications. She can be found at her website that bears her name, or by finding her on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

I'm not a member of this book's target audience. My 17-year-old daughter is. This book is interesting, encouraging and inspiring. Kamakis lays the foundation for her call to girls to live generously for God. In the earliest chapters, her teen readers can get a sense of God's love for each of them as individuals. She'll learn that she can't build real friendships with people she doesn't know outside of social networking. Girls' concerns over boys, their appearance, popularity and bullying, are all addressed. As this is a Christian book, this author addresses all of these issues from a Christian perspective. Before I got this book, I thought it might be much like a book that i reviewed earlier, written by a teacher. This book, however, is addressed to girls themselves. Queen Bees Wannabees is addressed to parents, and is written from a secular perspective. It's far more detailed than Liked. Christian books often are shorter than their secular counterparts. In this case, I believe it's because of the target readership. Even as an adult, I can only imagine how challenging much of this is for teen girls from any generation, to swallow. Even for the middle-class teen girls whom this book speaks loudly to. This book, however, has little to says to girls with disabilities, especially those with autism or related disabilities. This book also has little to say to teen girls from low-income families, those whose families' central thought is just to survive. But this book is much needed, and it doesn't hurt adults to read it and apply its principles to our lives.

I recommend this book to all teen girls. However, I know that most of the will likely pre-judge this book as more adult lecturing. They won't want to read any books suggested by their parents. CHapters covering how girls should treat others, may indeed come off as lecturing teen girls. There's no getting around it. But girls should be able to feel the love that this author obviously has for them, and that she has their best interests at heart. I also recommend this book for parents and youth workers, so they'll get a feel for how to communicate with teen girls. What is needed is fr a counterpart book, addressed to teen boys.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through BookLookBloggers, in exchange for my honest review. I wasn't required to give a favorable review of this book.