Apparently some members of the Hillery Beach Garden Club weren't overly thrilled with the female role models of today's society. In fact, they were so disgusted with the bad advice that abounds, solely to delude poor unsuspecting females; that they decided to write this book.

Semi-serious, there is great advice hidden unobtrusively within the humour. Each chapter deals with a separate topic and starts with a garden anecdote - all of these are interesting, whether their style is funny or just informative.

After the garden analogy, is a summary of that topic's "Discussion". This is the meat of the Chapter, detailing the debate and arguments of the members, as they formulate their advice and pool their wisdom.

Finally we are rewarded with their advice to the women of today. This advice is formed from the distilled experience and knowledge of a collective 1,070 years of womanhood.

Some of the highlights include:

- Female as adolescent "The cardinal is the most beautiful of birds, but is the bird that suffers the ugliest adolescence. If you are an ugly adolescent, you need to remember here that cardinals are an entirely different species than humans."

- Appearances Count "A few swipes of Preparation-H on the baggy eyes will work quick miracles at picking them up and plopping them back from where they fell."

- The Childbearing Years "Murder is a viable alternative in the event some dumb bimbo nurse pushes the baby back inside of you."

- Bringing Home the Bacon "To all the fathers... heavy metal is not a chemical element"

The book is not all humour, though it definitely is hilarious. One Chapter even had me in tears, as I sympathised with the woman's story of harassment. There really are pearls of wisdom and touching stories amongst all the fluff. I would heartily recommend this book, both for the content and the writer's amusing turn of phrase.

Rating - 4 stars

Reviewed by Sandy Cummins