A great notion about Female Empowerment is suddenly sweeping the publishing industry. The shelves at Bookends & Beginnings are swelling with books like Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, Rad Women Worldwide, Strong is the New Pretty, and Feminist Baby. Not since the 1970s has the country seen such an exuberant literature of female assertiveness—and yet, is really getting easier to be a girl? Are there downsides as well as upsides to all this exhortation to girls to be bad and rad and brazen? Join us for a spirited discussion of contemporary girls’ coming-of-age with Renee Engeln, author of Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women, and Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays. The conversation will be moderated by Bookends & Beginnings owner Nina Barrett, whose essay “Mind-Body Story,” about female coming-of-age, appears in the Great Books Foundation anthology Her Own Accord: American Women On Identity, Culture, and Community.