I’ve written a book!
It’s called Girls® and is the story of a generation being remade. It will be out in early 2026.
GIRLS® is what I believe girls have become in the modern world. We are ornaments on display, filtered and Facetuned. We are objects, shopped for on dating apps. We are brands, managed and monetised. We package up our lives and perform them for an audience. We measure our worth by public reviews and ratings. We have transformed from girls into GIRLS®, from people into products.
But this is not just another book about social media. It is about a vast, interconnected web of industries: the beauty industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the porn industry; the commodification of everything.
Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing more about what’s in the book, what didn’t make it in, what I realised (and changed my mind about…) while writing it, plus some exclusive previews for paid subscribers.
Thank you to all of you for making this possible. I first had the idea for Girls® back in 2021, when I was scrawling notes on receipts at the café where I worked, writing on my hand between coffees, then rushing home to pour it all into essays, desperate to figure out why I felt so anxious and alone. I decided to test chapter ideas by starting this Substack, and along the way found so many of you who felt the same. So it means more than you know to finally share this here. This crisis, and how to put girls back together again, is very close to my heart. I hope I have done it justice.
You can pre-order Girls® here:
UK:
Waterstones (order today for 25% off!)
US:
More soon,
- Freya x
Freya I hope this takes off and that thousands of people (especially girls looking for answers) get to read your insightful words.
Thank you for putting your voice out there, each one of your essays leaves me thoughtful and feeling a bit more enlightened about the crazy stuff that is going on nowdays.
It's like we've been gaslit into thinking none of this stuff hurts us, that we aren't being commodified -- when it DOES hurt us, and we ARE being used and treated as expendable consumers. Thankyou for giving a voice to these problems <3
Looking forward to this , I m a psychotherapist and from the interviews I ve seen with Freya , she’s a very important voice on this which seems to have become so normalised it doesn’t really register . Bravo !