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HOW GIRLS ARE MADE by Mindy McGinnis

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for the earc (Nov 18)

Three girls team up to teach a secret class while each of their lives are slowly unraveling. Fallon, the fixer, must deal with keeping herself and the group anonymous. Shelby, the fighter, must deal with her new boyfriend and being who he wants her to be. Jobie, the "failure", needs to keep her followers happy even though the keep asking for more.
HOW GIRLS ARE MADE is a YA contemporary novel that is intriguing, insightful, and sad. This book starts with a death, but we don't know who. Honestly, the reason I stuck around wasn't the humor, or the growing friendship between the girls---which was great because they all needed each other in their own way---I stuck around the find who d*ed. And this pulse-pounding book kept me hooked until the last couple of chapters when everything was going down.
This book made me tear up. Everything Fallon, Shelby, and Jobie went through was terrible. And then those last few chapters kicked that into gear. This book was crazy and humourous (Shelby's witt, Fallon and Farrah's sisterly bond, etc) at times, though it was more than that. This book does revolve around topics that could be triggering, but I cannot go into detail without spoiling this, so please check before reading.

S€x Education meets Europhia in the newest YA book by @mindymcginnisauthor
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Fallon loves to plan and be organized, but when her younger sister comes to her for basic anatomy and sexED questions, she’s shocked that knows so little. Her high school classmates aren’t that much further ahead of her sister so Fallon decides to start a secret sexED off-campus club devoted to sexeducation, mental health and self-defense. Shelby loves to fight in the ring, but when her boyfriend punches her in the nose and it gets shared on social media, Shelby over corrects by immediately dating the new guy on campus she’s chatting with in her DMs. Jobie is obsessed with her lack of social media presence, despite doing everything she can to go viral so when she gets a new follower who offers to help grow her audience, she leaps at the opportunity. All three girls intersect in Fallon’s sexED course, but each find themselves in seemingly impossible situations and one ends up dead.
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Mindy is out here doing the work, y’all. I agree that our sexED in public schools is abysmal, as well as a lack in training for girls and young women in regards to assault and self-worth. Social media has only compounded these issues. All the laws surrounding females in this country are getting worse and worse. It’s important that we educate ourselves and our youth. They are finding out about sexED through social media and the internet, not being able to differentiate between fact, fiction, right, wrong, healthy and unhealthy. Thank you Mindy for writing this novel. Check those content warnings before you read and add it to your high school library when it releases November 18!

CW: suicide attempt, drugs, bullying, catfishing, r@pe, sexual assault, physical assault, emotional abuse, body shaming, mental health issues, cyberbullying, child p0rnography, sexual content (discussed), teen pregnancy, homophobia, blackmail

i really liked one of her previous books "the female of the species", so i had high hopes for this one. the problem with this book is that it doesnt know what type of book to be...? if that makes sense. the subject material is definitely important but the way it's all included was not cohesive. there were also a couple of unanswered questions which was disappointing

4.75⭐️

my face for the entirety of the last 50 pages: 😲

Holy COW! This book was awful! So terribly awful, in an amazing way that makes any sense!

Like what was happening was awful, but I LOVED it!

That ending?!??! 😭

The whole premise of this book is that these 3 girls are doing dangerous things...and one of them ends up dead in the end.

VERY good!

Thank you, NetGalley.com, for the ARC!! Pick this up when it comes out! (check trigger warnings first, though)

As a longtime fan of this author, I usually don’t even need to read the synopsis before requesting her books—I trust her storytelling that much. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite work for me, and I’m honestly a little bummed to say that it’s my least favorite of her works so far.

The premise sounded incredibly timely and important—exploring sex education, toxic relationships, and the impact of social media on young women. I was expecting something sharp, emotional, and gripping. But the execution felt more like a dramatized health class than a fully fleshed-out novel. The chapters were long and sometimes repetitive, the pacing was slow, and I struggled to connect with any of the main characters. Their personalities didn’t feel fully formed, and instead of complex, they often came across as stereotypes.

I also had a hard time buying into some of the plot points. The idea of a teen starting an anonymous sex-ed group in person—and then online—without fully thinking through the dangers didn’t feel believable in today’s digital world, where most teens would simply turn to social media or search engines first. And while the book tried to cover a wide range of important topics, from consent to online predators, it started to feel like it was trying to do too much at once, sometimes at the expense of emotional depth or character development.

To me, it read like a toned-down version of Sex Education—but with less humor, charm, or narrative focus. It leaned more clinical and message-driven, which made it hard to stay engaged with the story. I do appreciate what the author was trying to do, and there were moments of insight that reminded me why I love her writing. But overall, it felt like a novel that might have been more effective as a nonfiction companion guide or educational resource rather than a character-driven YA story.

All that said, I’m still looking forward to what she writes next—one less-than-stellar experience won’t change that. I’m rounding this up to 3 stars because I do think it’ll resonate with younger readers and spark important conversations, even if it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for sharing a digital review copy of my favorite thriller author’s latest work with me. I truly appreciate the opportunity, though I wish I had enjoyed it a bit more.

I really wanted to like this book. The blurb sounded like a fresh take on some difficult YA topics. But I simply couldn’t suspend my disbelief on SO many things (more on that later), I found all of the main characters pretty much unlikable (except for Mal—but she was more of a secondary character), and it just started to read like a really ridiculous version of Dear Abby. Most of the plot in the blurb was very secondary to the “super secret” (not) website and meetings.

To start the story off, high school senior, Fallon, is appalled when her 8th grade sister doesn’t seem to know a lot of the basics about sex. Their school district’s sex-ed class is sorely lacking in providing information. So Fallon decides to start a meeting at the local community center for teens to have open Q&A chats about sex.

Annnnnd… right there is where I had to begin suspending disbelief. One, teens these days would go online first to do something like this…not rent a space at a community center. Two, she didn’t even allow her sister or her friends to even attend…soooo how was it supposed to help them? Three, this might have seemed more realistic before the days of every teen having access to the internet on their phones or computers…but not so much now. Kids these days know how to google any questions they have. And yes, they will probably see a lot of incorrect information online, but they’re also tech savvy enough to know how to find reliable sources. And within weeks, they have entire school athletic teams, half the cheerleading squad, band kinds, PLUS kids from another school coming? I just can’t realistically see it in this day and age.

Shortly after creating the meeting space, they do decide to go online to create a place where they post facts and dispel myths related to sex so that her younger sister and friends (and other kids) can access the info. But for someone who was really petrified about getting caught by adults for having this kind of “club” in person, it’s like she didn’t stop to think about the cons of creating a web space devoted to that subject matter. She had to realize it could be a breeding ground for ALL kinds of sickos. Then, the super ridiculous part (for me), is that adults from town started DMing with questions. Now, it’s not like she pretended to be a PhD in Sex…nope, they had zero idea who was behind a website (clearly aimed to adolescents.) And the fact that several of the adults didn’t bother to hide their identity to do so? Really? A grown adult, the wife of the school superintendent, writes in to ask about is texting cheating? And another adult asks about nipple hair?

I get that the author was seemingly trying to address EVERY sex question/misconceptionthat may be out there, but that part really got a bit drawn out and over the top. PAGES and pages were spent on kids asking Fallon (a virgin btw) every possible sex related question you can think of…and her answer. I think it might have made more sense to maybe create a companion website to go with the book…. Where some of the Qs ( and answers) from the book could be posted…along with more facts. There were important issues discussed like consent etc. Some parts just really got to where I felt like instead of a novel, I was reading a (semi) humorous book of common misconceptions about sex/sexuality etc. And then there were of course many conversations had and internal musings about acceptance of other sexualties, and even r*pe was discussed (several times.) When I say the author seemed intent on including everything, I mean it. And there is no way so many high school students (several whom in the group ARE having sex) seriously don’t know the answers to many of the presented questions. Again, this is where a fun companion website would have made more sense to provide factual info to maybe younger teens, instead of making the characters on one hand seem clueless (and not afraid to admit it in front of their peers at these meetings), and on the other, Fallon is apparently the only one who knows how to look up sex related answers online in her entire high school.

And I GET that this is important info…that some kids don’t learn it at school or from their parents. But I kept thinking, the way it’s being presented almost makes it seem too over the top ridiculous instead of the serious matters that they are. And can we please get back to story plot at some point?

CHARACTERS- I wanted to like Fallon more, and I did at first. But she became so singularly focused with a lack of common sense (that she’s supposed to have) on one unknown individual from the site. And yes, the reason she was focused on this individual was important, they claimed to be a victim of SA. (I say “claimed” only because she didn’t know if the person was even real or catfishing to lure her out.) She not only took VERY dangerous chances, she dragged a friend along with her, potentially putting her friend in danger too.

Jobie- I actually found her the most realistic portrayal of many teens—the insecurities and need for validation from people online etc. I don’t know if we weren’t supposed to realize what was happening with “Amy” pretty much from the beginning, but I saw that coming a mile away. HOWEVER… I found what ended up happening to her with “Amy” not realistic enough. The person wouldn’t have just done what they did and let her go, She would have either been abducted or killed. Why on earth would they let her see them and just let her leave after all the scheming and effort they put in, AND doing what they did after that? On one hand, the author wants to be frank and upfront about all these topics…but then…has that go down that way? Not realistic. I also can’t see any teen going through what she did, and coming right home and instead of deleting every social media account.. she immediately the same night decides to instead go video herself doing an online challenge.

Shelby- She annoyed me. It’s like again, because she was into amateur fighting, the author thought, well let’s make her another stereotype…make her as crass and obnoxious and sloppy as possible. And it makes no sense that she would continue to go to these meetings with people she’s not even friends with, and had zero interaction with until the day the story starts. Maybe she’d go to one as a thank you for Fallon being nice to her after her boyfriend hit her…but it really doesn’t seem in her personality to continue the favor.

Mal - I did like her. But she seemed like a very secondary character. Quite honestly, it seemed like she existed solely to be the gay friend. We never learned much about her, her home life, her backstory or day to day.
Rory- Same as Mal, except he’s the gay male gym friend. We got to see slightly more of him, but not much.

It seemed like all of the characters were more like caricatures of different stereotypes or cliques.

The ending was a complete let down for me. Out of the blue, ALL this tension built and everyone was in danger. It was like…oh no…I have to wrap this up..quick… stick every one of them in a life or death situation so the reader doesn’t know which one died from the first pages! And then the big reveal…. And seriously? That’s it?

(We don’t even ever learn who was after Fallon, or posting those DMs to her either, despite all that being a huge focus of the story.). The one year later part was pointless imho.

I expect to find myself in the minority with my take on this book…because yes, it does address needed YA topics. I just think it could have been done better. And I hate saying that. I honestly rarely post negative reviews that are this long and in depth…but there was just so much I simply couldn’t get past. And because they ARE important topics, and we NEED more of that in YA, I think I felt especially disappointed. However, I’m rounding up from 2.5 to 3 stars because it might be someone else’s cup of tea. Although I think target age range would have to be on the much lower end of YA for them to really either learn anything or buy into the scenarios.