Odd Girl Speaks Out

The national bestseller Odd Girl Out exposed a hidden culture of cruelty that had always been quietly endured by American girls. As Rachel Simmons toured the country, these girls found their voices and spoke to her about their pain. They wanted to talk-and they weren't the only ones. Mothers, teachers, counselors, young professional women, even fathers, came to Rachel with heart-wrenching personal stories that could no longer be kept secret.Here, Rachel creates a safe place for girls to talk, rant, sound off, and find each other. The result is a collection of wonderful accounts of the inner lives of adolescent girls. Candid and disarming, creative and expressive, and always exceptionally self-aware, these poems, songs, confessions, and essays form a journal of American girlhood. They show us how deeply cruelty flows and how strongly these girls want to change.Odd Girl Out helped girls find their voices; Odd Girl Speaks Out helps them tell their stories.I'm always the odd girl outNo one talks to meI try to be friendly and speak outBut I'm invisible, see?You know, gossip is a natural thing in high school. I'm one of those girls that will do it right in front of you. I'll whisper at my friends and look at you the whole time. Then we'll all cut up laughing. You know we're talking about you.My best friend and I started being friends with this other girl. But she was fat. It was hard because she always wanted to go down the slide second and she would crush us. We didn't want to tell her she was fat, so we decided to drop her. Her mother called my mother and told her we were being mean. But we just couldn't be friends with her anymore.-from Odd Girl Speaks Out

Rachel Simmons graduated from Vassar in 1996, where she studied women's studies and political science. In 1998, a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford launched her research of female bullying and girls' psychology, leading to Odd Girl Out. She has worked in politics in Washington, D.C., and New York City and lives in Brooklyn.