The covers are creased and falling apart, and the pages are so fragile that they tear when I try to turn them, but each book burns as relevantly and brightly as when they were glossy and new and first belonged to me. Duncan was not precious. She was precise. She excelled at identifying the traumatic aspects of being a teenage girl, writing about topics such as eating disorders, popularity, sex, domestic violence, suicide, authority, dating, and unplanned pregnancy, just to name a few, and amplifying the horror of each one into full-blown nightmaresβwhich, come to think of it now, was comforting to me as a developing young woman.
It meant she was a writer who took teenage girls seriously. She felt our pain. Take Locked in Time as an example, in which petulant teenager Josie is magically, permanently paused in mid-adolescence by her mother, who wishes to remain eternally young.
Unfortunately, the cessation of the aging process comes at the worst, most awkward point possible for Josie. She is on the cusp of becoming her adult, autonomous self, and must endure acne, mood swings, and a body and self that will remain undeveloped until the end of time. After all, when we are growing up, we wonder who we will become.
How much of our early selves will remain within us when we are adults? The difficult decisions belong to us, if only we can make out our options clearlyβand then fight like hell to be able to make those choices. Daughters of Eve sets a group of teenage girls on their life course with the cutting precision of a razorblade. Set in a small Michigan suburb called Modesta, it tells the story of nine high schoolersβAnn, Tammy, Kelly, Holly, Paula, Bambi, Ruth, Laura, and Janeβin varying degrees of thrall to teacher Irene, who is the leader of their exclusive after-school club Daughters of Eve.
The club focuses at first on extracurricular activities such as selling raffle tickets to raise money for an all-girl soccer team. The act renders him homebound for the rest of the school year and, in the context of his former life as big man on campus, effectively impotent.
