Edited review below:
Emily Linden is either the bravest woman or the dumbest. It is brave to think you could transcribe your middle school diary & be celebrated. She is dumb to think it wouldn't matter. Emily may also be a far better person than I ever will be.

What makes this book is powerful is not just the fact she transcribed her middle school diary so you can watch her deal with the slut shaming, but also the fact that "Future Emily" is annotating the diary. It takes the whole "what you would say to your 13-year-old self" though exercise to the next level. Future Emily is remarking not only on the lingo of middle school from the turn of the century, but also talking her middle school self down when she starts to slut shame herself. Take for example when Emily is walking with friends and a guy she is not dating grabs her breast. She writes furiously how sorry she is that she cheated. Future Emily is having none of it.

Moments like that will strike a chord with every girl who was every slut shamed and still carries around scars. This means that if you still do, I warn you that you may flashback to those moments in the hallway when that guy who always put his hand on your butt and you could never find a way to stop it. Or you reflect back on why you could never find the right words to say, "No," because as Emily puts it, sometimes there is social power in just letting things happen.

Full Review & Giveaway at VivalaFeminista.

Kids are mean. This is not a surprise to anyone, especially not these days with all the focus on bullying and mental health. It is also no surprise to anyone who made it through middle school that those years are hard and awful. To be honest, if anyone had told me that having kids meant having to go back to middle school with each one of them, I'd have thought a lot harder about having them than I did. Many (most?) middle schoolers are insecure, confused, sometimes nasty or cruel, and aching to fit in. Emily Lindin chose to immortalize these terrible years in her diaries (thankfully mine were all pitched long ago) and now to share them with the world to shine a spotlight on the ugliness of slut shaming and bullying in this diary/memoir offshoot of The Unslut Project online.

Emily was 11 years old when her "friends" and classmates labeled her as a slut. Her diary captures her often casual acceptance of this label, the sometime hurt that it caused, and the boy crazy pursuits that it might have inspired. In addition to her diary from the time (names are changed to protect the innocent and the not so innocent), there are sidebars where adult Emily offers commentary on the entries written by her preteen self. The diaries are immature, repetitious, and painful reading. They are full of her crushes and the drama of frenemies. They will make you wince, sometimes with younger Emily and sometimes at younger Emily. The notes by older Emily range from interesting social commentary and expanding on the story she wrote down at the time to completely inane comments about pop culture, fashion, and other nostalgic "gee whiz" moments. The impulse behind writing the book was solid--slut shaming starts early and leaves indelible marks on these young girls--but in practice, the book is pretty cringe-worthy reading. If you want to read someone else's preteen diaries, then this might be the book for you. I can see how some people will be able to overlook the disconcerting format and the lack of real in depth analysis presented here. Me, I remember my own discomfort at that age, and as real and uncensored as Emily's dairies are and as thin as her commentaries are, I didn't learn anything new from them, nor did I really want to spend time in her preteen head, having long since thankfully gotten out of my own. ( )

Emily, the founder of the UnSlut project, and online site that provides support to those who have been sexually bullied or slut shamed has published her diaries from when she was a middle school girl and slut shamed herself.

http://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2016/11/unslut-diary-and-memoir-by-emily-lindin... ( )

We all know that growing up can be hard, but middle school? Middle school can be the worst. That age between being a kid and being an adult, beginning to figure out who you are and what you like, and god help us all, puberty. That horrifying time of life where if you're lucky you go through it quickly and when no one else is around. If you aren't...then you go through it slowly and during school when everyone can make fun of you. But what do you do when you're branded a "slut" by your classmates? How do you tell your parents or any adult what's going on?

This book was Emily's answer. While she didn't feel comfortable talking to adults, she did keep a diary of what happened to her during this time period. And as an adult, she began posting the diary online. Page by page. Post by post. Detailing the trauma that she went through as an eleven year old girl, being called a slut. The blog is called "The UnSlut Project" and the goal was to let others know they weren't alone. She provided commentary after each post, thoughts of what had happened and what she could/would do differently if she could have. This book is adapted from that blog, offering excerpts from that diary with commentary to provide perspective and context.

This...this is one of those books that is hard and heartbreaking to read. It isn't easy to read the words of an eleven year old girl talking about her life or how she's being shamed as a slut. It's a heartbreaking read to know that people can be so cruel in life. And it's even more heartbreaking when you read the afterwards and realize that some of the people didn't realize they were doing it. Or that it had as much of an impact as it did on Emily's world. Stop and think about that for a moment. These bullies have grown up. They remember they did these things. But they didn't think it mattered or hurt that much. Let that sink in.

More heartbreaking in this book tough is you start to place yourself into the story. Whether it be the one being shamed, the bully, or the passive bystander that did nothing to stop it. Or maybe it's all three. Maybe we've all had the different roles in our lifetime as things have changed and we've grown. It's a sobering thought to realize the hurt that you've caused someone else. Or the hurt they've caused you. Or the realization that maybe, just maybe, you could have done something differently to stop what was happening, if only you had known. Or if only you had been brave enough.

And I know, we're all probably sitting here thinking "Oh bull hockey. They knew what they were doing." or "Hindsight doesn't change what happened." And no, it doesn't. And no they might not have. What I take from this is, what if the bullies really don't know what they've done? What if they know they've hurt, but not that they've hurt this much? Perhaps, just perhaps this is something we can learn from and take forward in our efforts to combat slut shaming and bulling. Perhaps this is where we build a table for people to sit down at and talk about the things that were said or left unsaid. Things that hurt and caused pain. Or to just weep silently and be near each other as we learn what we did that hurt.

This is a book that everyone should read, regardless of age. Particularly those that are just about to enter middle school. And yeah, I said about to enter middle school. We don't need to cower or point fingers or hide behind sheets saying "Well my child would never do this!" or "I don't want my child to learn about this from a book!" Because the truth of the mater is, they'll learn about this anyway. And not from a book, but from the kid next door. Or that kid on the bus. Or that one in the classroom that you always thought was so nice, but it turns out he's an asshole and a bully. And please, don't tell me this would never happen. Or that your kid will never do this that you've raised them better. Peer pressure goes a long way to changing things.

The point is, you can't avoid it. It would be nice if we could, but life doesn't work that way. So stand up in the beginning. Let them know that this type of behavior isn't acceptable. That if someone does this to them, to come and talk to them or someone they trust. Don't let them be a bully to anyone. And to know that no matter what, it does get better.

Review copy provided by Quirk Books ( )

This is the actual diary entries from the founder of the Unslut Project who wrote about her experiences in 6th, 7th and 8th grades. In addition, she adds thoughts and comments from adult Emily to explain and discuss her journal entries. While her diary was written before the use of so much social media today by teens, it is still very insightful and relevant regarding how young people in those age groups think and act, particularly toward each other in these types of bullying behaviors. ( )