Gonick, Marnina. Between Femininities: Ambivalence, Identity, and the Education of Girls. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 226 pp.

by Laura Rattner

From the beginning of this multi-storied, -textured, and -layered work, the reader is put on guard that this is not the "typical" scholarly work that assumes authority afforded to researchers. Recognizing that the very nature of research changes not only the observed, but the observer as well, Gonick actively eschews her authoritative power of authorship, instead engaging the reader as a willing companion on a wild ride into the depths of the "complications and ambivalence involved [for girls] in creating and staking positions within femininity"; in short, we are invited into the "imaginary terrain" of girls (7).