This admittedly anecdotal account of the differences between men and women provides a great number of insights into the male experience/neuroses in 21st century America. As a man, I found it useful in appreciating my own behavior and reactions. At the same time, it was helpful to see how little an intelligent, political woman understood of the male perspective until she threw herself into it.

I enjoyed the book, except when the philosophy major came out. Her conclusions about the secret life of men are silly from the point of view of a lifelong male. However, the story if fun to read.
The part about her mental breakdown being caused by her role as a male is suspect. Norah's life as a lesbian might have left her slightly clueless about men. Her surprise that men have feelings or her assertion that men only have a 3 note emotional range is funny. Her assumptions that men stare at women out of hostility is an interesting assumption. Most men I know look at women for a different reason than hostility.

While there was some useful information,this book appeared to be an effort to prove Ms. Vencent's prejudices, rather than the voyge of discovery that it could have been. The author seemed to be searching for the very worst in men, and of course, she found it. The fact that she would join a men's bowling league, when she couldn't bowl was simply amazing. I don't think a man (or most women) would ever consider doing such a thing. In addition to the lack of substance, I feel the book was written in a very unengaging and simplistic style. Overall, it was one of the few books I have bought over the years that I don't believe was worth the money. If you must buy this book, find a used one, or better yet, get it from the library. If I ever see another book written by Ms. Vincent, I will pass.

One of the best books I've read in decades. This woman writes like a lyricist, digs like an anthropologist and observes like a scientist. She immerses herself in a shockingly foreign world, one we women didn't know existed. Our suspicions about what it's like to be male in America are completely right... and heartbreakingly wrong.

The cover shows photos of what even she admits is a masculine looking woman and a feminine looking man, but don't let that dissuade you from reading this book. She is all woman. But her disguise is physically convincing to those she interacts with; yet her male masquerade becomes behaviorally unacceptable in the oddest manners. She just doesn't know the code. But she learns it. Painfully. And at great personal cost.

As a lifelong feminist, I felt the stirrings of my earliest consciousness raising as a 12-year-old being told by a nun at school, "girls don't want to play basketball at recess but prefer to talk quietly among themselves." But the consciousness-raising is for those on the opposite side of the fence, for the ones who were not only allowed, but expected, to play basketball at recess and never talk quietly among themselves.

I'd recommend this book to men who want to know that they are not alone in what they may be thinking and feeling (which is not something popular culture typically chooses to explore) and to women who often think they are the only victim of gender roles. Author Vincent pulls no punches and exposes herself as fully as if stark naked under a gaping raincoat. She pays the price for her strange but compelling mixture of duplicity in research and honesty in writing in ways we don't expect, and will never forget.

I can't wait for Norah Vincent's next book; I only hope her psychological well-being can survive another journey into life's totally visible but throughly hidden realities.