Loehnen does a broad exploration of the deadly sins and relates it to common feminist themes. I found the book not super engaging. It was dry. It did not really introduce any new ideas but would be a fitting supplementary read for an intro to women's studies course. It seemed Loehnen was trying to find personal meaning in writing it as a form of therapy and reflection of her own past. There is a lot tied to historical and philosophical ideas but I would be more interested in learning about the modern context and how that translates across different cultures. ( )

A well-written and thought-provoking book about how core attitudes about what makes for a decent human are used as weapons against women's happiness and success. Using the framework of the seven deadly sins, Loehnen illustrates how, throughout history, they have been used against women in order to shame them into denying their basic wants and needs. And this isn't just man-driven. Women have also been conditioned to pull down the tall poppies.

In Loehnen's chapter on envy, she discusses how women will develop a visceral hate for a woman they know, not because that woman did something wrong, but because she did something brave or different, and by doing so, threatens the pack. She says the women who grate on our nerves are generally telling us what we want and we need to listen to that.

This book helps us see our unconscious self-restrictions and also helps us better perceive how we tear down instead of celebrate the women who beat their own path and open that pathway to a happier life for other women to follow. Well worth the read. ( )

Sometimes in between all the rom-coms, psychological thrillers, historical fiction and biographies you need to stop and read something that makes you think. When I read the description of On Our Best Behavior – a book that promised to discuss how our tradition and culture have decreed that women are inferior in all ways: physically, spiritually, and morally, desperate to prove our basic goodness and worthiness – I was excited to read it.

I’m a (happy, contented) wife, mother, educated professional woman, but as I read the chapter headings I found myself saying, “Yep, yep, yep,” and relating to all things we believe are bad and all the ways we try to be good.

In order to avoid:
• Sloth – we deny ourselves rest
• Envy – we deny our own wanting
• Pride – we deny our own talents
• Gluttony – we deny our own hunger
• Greed – we deny our own security
• Lust – we deny our own pleasure
• Anger – we deny our own needs
• Sadness – we deny our own feelings

I would venture that all women can relate to some of these items, if not all. Even if we are happy and satisfied with our lives, we often feel things are out of our control, we are being judged by a different standard, and we can never measure up. We joke about guilt being our most familiar emotion. We hear or experience things that marginalize us so often that we stop listening; we decide we are asking too much and lower our expectation of what we think we have earned or deserve.

This book is not a man-hating screed. It is obviously meticulously researched and documented. The author’s stated goal is to illuminate a path toward a more balanced, spiritually complete way to live through a probing analysis of contemporary culture and thoroughly researched history. In addition, by sharing her own story and the spiritual wisdom of other traditions, Loehnen attempts to show how women can break free and discover the integrity and wholeness they seek.

The book is full of biblical references to address the spiritual side, extensive detailed historical references and a wealth of the author’s own experiences. It is all very well put together but at some point it lost relevance for me and I felt a bit overloaded by facts and repeated statements starting with, “Women need to recognize . . . “ I did not expect immediate solutions or fixes or even a self-help book, but the final conclusion of, “We are not yet lost. We just need to find ourselves again and, wings unfurled, fly home,” left me disappointed and not quite sure what the book was trying to achieve and it if had actually achieved it.

Thanks to Random House Publishing for providing an advance copy of On Our Best Behavior in exchange for my honest opinion. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own. ( )

Thanks to Dial Press/Penguin Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. On Our Best Behavior is underline-able here and there, but by no means unputdown-able. It took me ages to get through this book and I am a speed reader. The style seemed to meander all over the place despite a built-in structure. I kept losing the thread over and over again. There are copious footnotes at the end but I don't plan to go through them. I might have done better with a print ARC with this one so I would at least get the benefit of the theological research. ( )

On Our Best Behavior explores the societal pressures of modern-day womanhood through the lens of the Seven Deadly Sins. The author analyzes the deadly sins through historical perspectives, mythology, religion, and folklore. She also provides her own experiences as a working mother and the struggles of what it means to be a woman in this day in age.

As a woman with a career and a family, I related to Loehnen's experiences so much. It's hard to not internalize everything we have been taught from a young age to be the woman that has it all but be it in a certain way. This idea that in order to be good, we have to meet all of these standards is harmful to our physical, mental, and emotional health. The topics discussed in this book are valuable in understanding the female experience today and how we need to learn to accept ourselves to live an authentic life.


Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for a review ( )