Do you ever feel crushed under the weight of your own expectations? Do you often lose sleep ruminating over a tiny mistake or worrying about what someone else thinks of you? Do you run yourself ragged trying to do it all, at home and at work, with a smile and not a hair out of place? Have you ever passed up an opportunity--a relationship, job, or challenge--for fear you wouldn't immediately excel at it? For you, is failure simply not an option?
You're not alone. As women, we've been taught from an early age to play it safe. Well-meaning parents and teachers rewarded us for being quiet and polite, urged us to be careful so as not to get hurt, and steered us to activities at which we could shine. Meanwhile, boys we expected to speak up, get dirty, play rough, and climb to the top of the monkey bars. In short, boys are taught to be brave, while girls are taught to be perfect.
As a result, we grow up to be women who are afraid to fail. As too many of us eventually learn, being scared to take risks, to take a stand, to ask for what we want, even to make mistakes, leads to a lot of disappointment and regret. When we hold ourselves back for fear of not being good enough, we tamp down our dreams and narrow our world, along with our chance at happiness.
But it doesn't have to be that way. In a book inspired by her popular TED Talk, Reshma Saujani shows us how to end our love affair with perfection, and rewire ourselves for bravery.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with girls and women from across the country, inspiring stories of women changing the world one brave act at a time, and her own personal journey to accept her imperfections, Saujani shares an array of powerful insights and practices to make bravery a lifelong habit. By being brave, not perfect, we can all become the authors of our biggest, boldest, and most joyful life.
Strong voice, strong cover, strong sense of theme throughout the book. I would have liked a bit of a different idea, since we’ve seen a lot of this theme already in the self-help book industry.
Author makes great points and has great content throughout. There needs to be more white space and cleaner formatting. It’s a pretty text heavy book that could have some graphics or interesting type setting to make the book appear a little bit less messy.

This is a very interesting read, I appreciated the author's point of view. It is worth the time to read. thank you for the opportunity to review this book

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin
In this book, author and creator of Girls Who Code Reshma Saujani discusses how at a young age, girls are socialized to be perfect, to play it safe, to be people pleasers, while boys are encourage to get their hands dirty and try multiple things, regardless if they fail or not. Using her personal experience, referencing research studies, and interviews with several women, Saujani seeks to find out what it means to be brave and strives to change the mindset of young women into being brave in different aspects of their lives.
This is a very inspirational, eye-opening book that had confronts this type of thinking in women (several times throughout this book, I found myself saying, "Wow, I do/think that all the time.") We're living in a time where women are being encouraged more than ever to use their voices and this book will continue to build upon the movement.

I received this book in exchange for a review from the publisher