Girls of a Certain Age
-
-
3.8 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
A fearless, darkly playful debut exploring the many impossible choices that accompany 21st century femaleness.
What is the right way to handle an abusive partner? An unexpected pregnancy? A toxic friendship? Chronic unemployment? Gender dysphoria? A family member going to war? A disability? Anger? Loneliness?
Finding themselves in disempowering, frightening, or otherwise unendurable circumstances, the girls, women, and non-binary characters in Maria Adelmann's stories look for ways to free themselves into new lives or, at the very least, new states of feeling. Sometimes they do this by hurting someone else or getting hurt; sometimes by submitting, other times by mounting a rebellion. With a special talent for pressing the sharp up against the tender, Adelmann explores the many pathways through the titular condition.
Ranging in style from the magical to the terrifying to the calm tones of a self-help manual, Girls of a Certain Age captures the spectrum of strategies we apply to the pain of life, strategies that we persist in pretending might actually work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Adelmann's uneven debut collection focuses on young women facing difficult choices to varying degrees of impact. In "Elegy," one of the most powerful pieces, a young woman who's just had a double mastectomy reflects on the death of her aunt from breast cancer, and the near death of her mother as well. In "First Aid," the narrator details her self-harm, referring to her cuts as gills "because they help me breathe." In "Pets Are for Rich Kids," a young girl contrasts her own life and relative poverty with that of a wealthy friend while also trying to understand why her father abandoned her. Less successful are stories about 20-somethings, whether searching for meaning after a job layoff ("None of These Will Bring Disaster") or having relationship troubles ("Middlemen" and "Human Bonding"), though a standout among these is the lyrical and whimsical "Unattached," in which a young woman suddenly finds herself and her world turned literally upside down. While some stories could have been left on the cutting room floor, Adelmann offers an abundance of insights on the vicissitudes of life.
