This book was a good introduction to feminism and the issues that women (and other marginalized groups to some extent) face just by existing. The information was solid, but it overall isn't a book likely to set the world on fire either. I would recommend this book to young people and those who are just starting a feminist journey, but if you are already farther along a lot of the material likely will not be new to you. I think this would also be a good book for men to read (I know, unlikely lol).

I received an ARC of the audiobook from the publisher on NetGalley.

I absolutely loved this audio book. Id read the hardcopy but hearing the author speak and emphasis certain phrases was great.

I'll definitely be looking into more audio books.

Thank you for the arc.

Title: Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
Author & Narrator: Florence Given
Genre: Self-Help/Non-Fiction
Pages: 224
Publication Date: Available Now

I recently listened to Women Don’t Owe You Pretty as it was an audio nonfiction book. I love these types of book to listen to while I work and it was available as a “Read Now,” on NetGalley so I went for it. The audiobook is narrated by the author, Florence Givens and covers a variety of topics like being jealous of other women’s success, judging women’s attractiveness and queerness. I understand that the print version contained a lot of illustrations but there was no supplement with this audiobook.

As a preface to this review, I want to say that I was not aware of the accusations against this author of stolen content from a woman of color and how Florence Given handled it prior to reading this book (not well). I’m really appreciative to one of my Booksta friends who let me know! I’d encourage you to research this situation before you read this book. I know I would have made a different decision.

What I liked about this book:
•The narration by the author was excellent – I love when authors narrate their own books.
•The cover is gorgeous.
•I enjoyed the chapter on queerness quite a bit. It is called “Maybe it is a girl crush or maybe you’re queer?” I have noticed this a lot over the past couple of years that many women are waking up to the idea that cisgender men are the only option.

What I didn’t like:
•While the author thanks POC for all their insights, much of this book centers on a white feminist perspective. The book is branded as an introduction to feminism and focuses on issues that appeal to a middle-class white audience such as wearing make-up and doing your hair. While this important, they pale in comparison to topics like violence against women. Also, when you consider the amount of racism POC may face gained employment, the topic of not doing their hair and make-up isn’t really an option. There are multiple examples of where the author could have delved deeper but does not.
•The author makes many authoritative statements but provides no evidence or data. A person who read this book that tried to make these statements might be challenged for evidence.
•There is a lot of repetition and cliches throughout this book.

At this time, I cannot recommend this book due to the accusations of stolen content.

ARC provided to me by Andrews McMeel Publishing, via Net Galley, in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to enjoy this book and review it.


Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Give is an information and to learn book for people who are going through a journey to unlearn or listen to learn something from women. This is for listeners that are okay with listening to another person having hard and uncomfortable conversations.


I enjoy the topics of consent, gaslighting, and dating. Different conversations are being had in the book, some very vaguely but quick and smart enough to be understood and have your interest to learn more. It's far more interesting listening to topics and then making commentary on them.

If you enjoy listening to topics as race, relationships, abuse, queerness? This book is for you.

Women Don't Owe You Pretty is a book full of common sense self-help advice aimed at young women. There are great reminders here for young women navigating the wider world - don't accept "crumbs," don't give energy to people who can't give you energy in return.

I especially enjoyed this book on audio. There are trigger warnings preceding the chapters that discuss rape and sexual assault, which I liked. This was a quick, interesting read that I would definitely add to my shelves.

I think experiencing this book as an audiobook, rather than a physical copy, positively affected my thoughts and feelings about it. I loved the narration by Florence Given, the author herself. Her tone perfectly matched the text throughout the entire book. She managed to make this book, which I probably would have found boring if I read it myself, very entertaining. This book boosted my confidence a lot because I have heard someone else say certain things I needed to hear.

The author tells us her story about becoming a feminist and gives us advice about how to change our lives for the better. I have fully enjoyed the first part of the book. Just as the synopsis promised, the book helped me realise that I am indeed the love of my own life. I didn't want to stop listening - every word made so much sense! However, that excitement didn't last too long. At some point, I stopped agreeing with everything that was said and started having mixed opinions. I think many things that were said were contradictory. For example, the author talks about the importance of conversation in a relationship, which I completely agree with - we should set boundaries and tell our partner when something is wrong. Of course, that gives us enough space to work on the problem together and come up with a solution. I feel like in what was said in the book, that is only an option when we are the ones with the problem. When the partner is the one who has the problem, the only solution seems to be very frequent saying "dump him" - sure, in some examples, it made a lot of sense, but in others, it just felt very wrong and extreme. Sometimes, the author talked about her opinions as if they were facts and it just gave me passive-aggressive vibes. While situations that were described for sure do happen, they do not happen in every relationship, but she still kept generalising.

In conclusion, yes, this book was very empowering because it reminded me to take more care of myself, my worth, my goals and my boundaries, but it did not really teach me anything new. While I enjoyed the parts of the book that talked about our relationship with ourselves, I mainly did not like the parts that talked about our relationship with others because they were pure generalisation and often it felt like it is advised to only care about what we want and completely ignore our partner, especially if it is a male.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed listening to this book. I chose to listen to it because I had heard a lot about it and knew it was very popular. I think it fell just slightly flat for me because it didn't really feel like it was doing anything 'new' if that makes sense. There wasn't anything wrong with it by any means! I think I just read it after it had been hyped up so much that it ended up falling a little bit flat. Being narrated by the author made it a brilliant listening experience. I feel like Florence added a lot to the book by narrating it as the author always knows best how they wanted something to come across in their book.

I would definitely recommend to friends and family as it's a great summary of today's feminist thoughts.

This was my first audio book and boy did I love it! Florence is educational in Women Don't Owe You Pretty and gives you plenty of food for thought. I think it's important reading for all and if you can afford it then the audio book is even better as she reads it to you!

Women Don't Owe You Pretty by Florence Given serves as an excellent introduction to the world of feminism. Given challenges the listener to question the beliefs they hold about themselves and their relationships with others, identify ways they may have internalized misogyny and empowers the listener to fall in love with themselves.

Listening to this book gave me more awareness of some attitudes and behaviours I have that may be detrimental to myself and other women. I also started to notice more examples of harmful stereotypes of women in the media that I am exposed to on a daily basis. Given's narration made the book easy to listen to.

I found the book highlighted many important topics related to feminism, but didn't go into much depth on these topics. I also felt that the author took quite an authoritative stance on many issues, but didn't have facts or credentials to back up these claims.

Overall, the book serves its purpose well as an "accessible leap into feminism".

Thank you to NetGalley and and Andrews McMeel Publishing/Audio for my copy of this audiobook.

I've been seeing this book everywhere for quite a long time. I wasn't sure if it was really for me but iI decided to give it a try and it did surprise me. It was very different than what I expected in a good way and I think this is the perfect read for any girl whether she sees herself as a feminist or not. I think this would also be a good one for men who want to learn more or are just interested in the topic.

this book is absolutely amazin and I think that everyone and their mothers should read it as soon as possible

I loved this book. Perfect for any woman from 16 years up!

Really left me with a lasting urge to improve myself by looking at how I treat myself and how others treat me

I'd recommend this to any young woman at all. There is something for everyone, even the most confident feminist would be reminded how awesome they are as a woman

Mhhh. Because I've read some books on the topic of feminism and sexism in the past, this audiobook did offer me not much new or groundbreaking. It was more like a 101 course for people who're new to these topics. What "Women don't owe you pretty" DOES is that it's putting all the knowledge of former works in an easy accessible format.

Ok, let me be honest. The book didn't say anything new, or anything that I didn't think a decent person should already know. So in that way it is nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary. However, despite the seeming derivative nature of the work, what the book did was to collect all the ideas and tell them in an accessible manner.
I'd recommend this book to people new to (you know who you are) and curious about feminism. Seriously, I think that's what any decent person should be.
My feelings aside, this book has been pitched as a Feminism 101, and I agree. Does the job.

A look into feminism, detailing how to transform the way you think about yourself and see others.

The content is great, especially for young readers. She covers a lot of topics, staying surface-level on each. The content is not new or radical, but it is delivered in a palatable manner. As others have mentioned, this book (print and audio) belong in all high school and college libraries.

I have been doing the work in a lot of areas over the past 18-months and those who are know that the journey is hard and it is never really over. At several points throughout the book, I found myself looking inward and it is truly wild to take inventory of your past selves and see how far you've come. Books like this give me hope. Hope that more people will do the work, hope that one day it gets easier, and hope that one day we are successful in dismantling the damn patriarchy.

overall I enjoyed this book as a whole. There were some cocepts that I found incredibly empowering and that left me really reflecting on how I interact with others each day. However, the rest just felt very superficial and white washed femnism at its finest. This felt very much like a Rachel Hollis book where the ideas were just listed as face value and I felt like I never really got to the true root of any of the issues. I was also dissapointed to learn that a lot of this was a concept that was originally written byChidera Eggerue, a Black woman. Overall, this book left me a little meh and It is not something that would really fight for feminism and equality.

What would you want to tell teen you if you could? In the introduction, Florence Given has a memorable “conversation” with her past self telling herself she doesn’t need to look pretty to please men. The lessons we slowly learn as we grow up. I genuinely hope this book will fall into the hands of younger girls who need to hear this sooner, rather than later.

However I do think that’s the target group. It definitely talks about some things every woman needs to hear, but at 26 it didn’t tell me much new. I would describe it as a Feminism 101 with chapters describing what privilege really is, that no really means no. It has a bit of everything, but not much of the depth I was hoping for. Maybe if it had included some opinions other than her own it could have provided more balance, but for me it didn’t live up to the hype.

I had the opportunity to listen to the audiobook through Netgalley and it was narrated by Florence herself. I always like audiobooks that are narrated by the author themselves because they’ll say it exactly the way they mean it, but I found her accent a bit distracting and too hyped.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an exerpt of this title. All opinions are honest and my own.

Thank you, NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing.

This was the first audiobook I've ever listened to and also the first non-fiction book I read in 2021. I wrote down my thoughts as I listened:

The introduction only assured me that the best and first thing we, as women (but really everyone), can do, is question everything. That's the path towards self consciousness and personal growth.

First half: the tone is empowering but at times sounds like the author is giving out orders.

Some of the chapter's content has nothing to do with being a woman. It's got good advice, but it's advice that applies to everyone. For example: "Don't give any time for people who don't have time for you." Personal experience has made believe and practice that, but it isn't something you can say to women only.

At chapter 14 I realized this book has a misleading title: the target audience. Women don't own YOU pretty. Who's you? Not women. But the book is definitely for women. It talks to women. Are men reading this? Just a thought.

Chapter 17 did make me think about the backstory of marriage and how women are just an object of trade. Disgusting. Retrograde.

Chapter 18 addresses microagressions. Nothing I didn't know about, but it is one of the most relevant chapters.
Honestly, it feels pretty empowering when I notice microagressions and speak up. I will continue doing so. Be mindful, be alert, raise your voice.

Conclusion: This book is important but not revolutionary. This isn't new information. And yes, what women (but also minorities) go through everyday is ultimately a really sad reality because this is still, unfortunately, a male-centered world.

This is a good book on feminism but I find there’s nothing new in this book that I haven’t heard about. If I had read this book, maybe 10 years before, I would’ve liked it but at my age now, I find it too superficial and the content is nothing which I haven’t learned.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of the audiobook.
#WomenDon’tOweYouPretty #NetGalley