Rough and Ready Girls

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While the girls come off as being authentic enough, I found myself a trifle bored. I’ve long outgrown my teenage rebellion days so all this sounds depressingly familiar. My adolescence wasn’t exactly like Evie’s but I can recall the times of pointless goofing off, lounging around with nothing to do, petty acts of crime and resigning myself to the dull tedium of never-changing days. When you’ve gone through it, you don’t necessarily want to relive it, even in fiction.

As the nervous part of the group, however, I could empathize with Evie’s unease, her uncertainty about whether she actually fits into the group or whether they merely tolerate her as a kind of mascot. Her acting out stems from the typical roots—a mother in a low-paying job and an absentee father—so this is also nothing really new. But, when she witnesses another girl being verbally bullied, she’s had her first inkling that being monied and privilege doesn’t necessarily pave the road or make it smoother.

What the story does do is capture the defiance of these girls, their closeness of the tight-knit group and the warmth that comes from females bonding together in adversity. I can only hope that Evie and her friends manage to make it through to adulthood without knowing true tragedy, even if misfortune seems inevitable.