Knapp is an extremely talented writer who is not afraid to use her own life to discuss issues that are important to her (just as she has done in her previous writing). With this book she discusses how women today are made to feel divorced from their own appetites, or made to feel they are not worthy of them. Subsequently, women end up 'acting out' by enforcing rules upon themselves that don't make sense when it comes to being happy, and indulging in behaviours that are harmful.
One thing I had a problem with in this book is Knapp's continual reference to the mother-daughter relationship and how that relates to how women see themselves. I think here she was extrapolating just a little too far from her own perceived experience and making it a universal condition. While the mother-daughter relationship can be an highly formative influence on women and how they see themselves and act as they grow up, I just don't buy that it is always so important for every woman as Knapp seems to imply. But this is not really a huge part of her hypothesis and does not really diminish greatly the overall argument she has to make.
I read this book just after finishing a book on Zen Buddhism, and while Knapp never mentions Buddhism once in her book, it is amazing that what she says - that happiness is to be found within not with external 'things' including items and relationships, that we need to accept who we are as we are if there is ever to be any mental peace in our lives - could easily fit within a Buddhist philosophy.
It is a sad fact that Caroline Knapp died in 2002, the year before this book was published. She was only 42 years old. ( )

Appetites: Why Women Want by Caroline Knapp (2003)

Picked this book up at a booksellers, mainly because it was pretty much the only book in the (limited) Psychology section that didn't deal with ADD or depression. And it turned out to be a bit of a feminist book, which I'm not disappointed about. It actually reminded me a lot of an English class that I took first year at university: Gender Issues in Advertising. Knapp talks a lot about how advertising affects women, as well as how we have lots of "appetites": for food, sex, even shopping. She says that if women are not fulfilled, we can end up expressing our hungers in harmful ways: anorexia, bulimia, sexual addictions, shopping addictions.

But basically, she sums it up very well: all these hungers, these appetites that women have, all boil down to love. Needing love, wanting love, wanting to give love and be loved. All in all, a really good book. ( )

One More in the Name of Love

Alice Walker once wrote, "Art unfailingly reflects its creator's heart. Art . . . comes from a heart open to all the possible paths there might be to a healthier tomorrow." Caroline Knapp's artistry was in writing and publishing her internal dialogues. This book appears to reveal her heart, a heart that was open to considering new and different possible paths to a healthier tomorrow. She may not have had all the solutions to the issues she raised in her excellent book, but I admire her tremendous courage to express her frustrations clearly and to think aloud to try and understand the motivations and causes for her behaviors. She expressed her best estimates of how she might improve her circumstances. This book is an excellent look at one [...] woman's cognitive thought processes about why she thought she was the way she was, and how she thought she might overcome her perceived problems. Whether you agree with her or not as to the causes of her issues and their possible solutions, if you read this book, you will learn something very valuable about the strong, and sometimes controlling, reasoning processes that likely flow through many women.

Throughout this book (and her books 'Pack of Two' and 'The Merry Recluse') she discusses her difficulties with communicating with her mother, her father, her significant others, professors and people in general. She discusses how she did not believe that her parents communicated well with each other in key areas. She watched her mother silently accept roles that she was not certain her mother should accept. She saw her mother accept treatment from her father that she thought her mother should have responded to differently.

When a woman chooses to attach her soul to another person's soul, and also agrees to "be silent to" or condone parts of the other person's philosophies or actions she believes to be in error - that prolonged, and potentially neverending, acquiescence can negatively effect her psyche. That degree of unceasing internal mental contradiction in major areas may manifest itself in either serious mental dysfunctions or physical ailments.

It is more healthy for a woman to express her objections, even if those objections are not addressed and remain outstanding, than to be silent. Women must overcome any discouragement they receive from their family, friends, and significant others, discouraging them from expressing the ideas they think may lead to possible solutions. They should not always defer to the people closest to them because women often have the best access to the most accurate information about themselves. And even when their suggested solutions may not be better than the current course, when they raise their objections, it gives their community notice of issues that likely deserve alternate responses and further reconsideration.

Thank you Ms. Knapp, not because you had all the right answers, but because you set a great example of a woman fighting resiliently to help herself and others, even when that self-examination was revealing and sometimes humbling. Even when she could not find sufficient motivations for herself, she worked toward and wanted other women to pursue their fulfilments and desires, and to become satiated. She wanted to stop the cycle of mothers unknowingly passing on negative patterns to their daughters. Caroline's voice was heard and I will always remember it. ( )