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| Matt Whyman |
| Hodder |
| 0340945338 |
| Aug 2007 |
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In “XY - a toolkit for life”, Matt Whyman achieved that rare balance of finding a chatty and informal voice and means for communicating information about puberty – the bits that everyone wants to know but that few feel comfortable in asking, or by turns in answering.
“Unzipped – a toolkit for life” is a welcome return of the winning format used previously but here updated for revised. Carefully interwoven firsthand experiences and the occasional joke prevent the book from becoming a diatribe of paternalistic guidance and advice diminishing the very real concerns that can accompany adolescence. Written and designed with precision, many will feel as comfortable with reading this as with FHM, Loaded, Nuts or any of the other boorish magazines aimed at the young male market and further restricting popular constructions of masculinity through positing football, cars and sexual bigotry as the unique preserves of the male and denying all that is emotional or cerebral in content. Matt Whyman’s skill is in appropriating this style but through subtle awareness of the head of emotional steam that lies behind all as they encounter the transition from childhood to adulthood, paying tribute to the emotional concerns that lie beyond the front, a standpoint worthy of applause.
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