Book Review: Girls Gone Wise



Are you a Girl-Gone-Wise or a Girl-Gone-Wild? Mary Kassian asks this question over and over again in her book Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild. This book is no easy read; it is thought-provoking and life-changing!

Single or married, in a relationship or not even close, we all need to seek after wisdom. “Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight,” Solomon exhorts in Proverbs 4:7. The KJV calls wisdom “the principle thing.” We need to pursue it! And as women, we have a particular opportunity in which we should pursue wisdom: relationships with men. God has a particular design for relationships between men and women, and it’s all too easy for us to ruin that design with our own “wisdom” and desires. We are inundated with worldly philosophy and the feminist movement, even in Christian circles.

Mrs. Kassian, as a conference speaker and counselor, is all too familiar with the problems and consequences of this sin. Out of her burden, she wrote this book to help women see what God’s wisdom looks like specifically for us and even more specifically as we interact with men. She structures her book as a comparison of the Wild Thing of Proverbs 7 to Lady Wisdom from various wisdom passages, mostly in Proverbs. Mrs. Kassian chose the way of comparison because “comparison [magnifies] the difference.” We can look at the fools of Proverbs and say “that’s not me,” and we can look at Lady Wisdom and think “yes, I’m there,” but when we see them up close and side-by-side…we see a different picture. Or at least I did.

There are twenty “Points of Contrast” in the book. She challenges us to examine our hearts: is Christ peripheral (as in the heart of the Girl-Gone-Wild), or is Christ the center of our hearts (as it is in the Girl-Gone-Wise)?  She calls attention to our attitudes (clamorous and defiant, or gentle, calm and amenable?), our habits (self-indulgent or self-disciplined?), our focus (are we Girls-Gone-Wild that focus on getting, or  Girls-Gone-Wise that focus on giving?), and even our body language (suggestive or demure?), our philosophy on roles (are we inclined to dominate or inclined to follow?), what boundaries we have set up (do we leave ourselves susceptible, or do we safeguard ourselves?), and many more topics.

Because I know that none of us have reached perfection or completed sanctification J, every one of us can benefit from this book—younger or older, single or married.

Mary Kassian wrote Girls Gone Wise with a two-fold purpose. She writes, “First, I hope that you’ll grow in spiritual discernment, so you can spot the difference between wild and wise when it comes to the right biblical attitudes, thought patterns, and behavior for women. Second, I pray that this awareness will help you say yes to God’s ideas about womanhood and no to the tremendous pressure to conform to the world’s pattern and to the sinful tendencies in your own heart.”

If you took a “wild or wise” quiz, where would you score—on the wild side that leads to death, or on the wise side that leads to life? I challenge you to get a hold of this book and read it—and ponder it and let it use God’s Word to change you.

~On a side note, girlsgonewise.com is a whole website of resources, including 5-minute videos in which Mrs. Kassian introduces each chapter (which might sound redundant but it does clarify and broaden the subject). My mom, sister and I benefitted a lot from going through this book and using the website.