As the title and cover may suggest, this is a book about first periods. Women of various ages, family situations, and ethnicities share their memories of menarche. The stories cover the full range of emotions one might expect: glee, embarassment, self-satisfaction, disappointment, and misery. There are numerous stories collected in this volume, but each is quite short. I would have preferred longer pieces and fewer of them. After a point they become repetitive, and I learned that there is definitely such a thing as a first period trope. Longer narratives that contextualized first periods within the larger context of adolescence would have offered more variety. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the editor is an eighteen-year-old college student. This certainly shows some initiative. I do think that the book's title, taken from Mao's manifesto, shows more useful enthusiasm than truly thoughtful use of the metaphor. This book is not directed at any one particular audience, but will be most useful, I suspect, to girls. I certainly would have read such a book with morbid curiosity about twenty years ago.
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