Good Girls Don’t Have to Dress Bad: A Style Guide for Every Woman
Shari Braendel
Zondervan, 2010, 208 pp., Zondervan.com
This fun and encouraging book is a valuable resource for any woman who wants to set a good example for the teenage girls in her life. In Good Girls Don’t Have to Dress Bad, readers learn ways to discuss with young girls the important topics of modesty, inner beauty and accepting their bodies the way God made them. Shari Braendel smashes the commonly held idea that women should strive toward a certain perfect body type and gives practical tips that help women of every size and shape look their best. Chapter 9 is especially relevant to women working with young girls and includes some thoughts from Braendel’s interviews with high school guys that reveal that teen guys really don’t want girls to show more skin.
As much as I appreciated this book’s message, I often found myself wishing that Braendel had balanced her encouragement to women to take care of themselves and to look their best with more insights about how to avoid materialism and focusing too much on one’s looks in the process. Despite this, this book has the potential to do far more good than bad in helping women learn biblical principles about how to present themselves to a watching world, especially to the young women who look up to them.
