NANCY DREW SOLVES THE MYSTERY OF WHY SHE'S NAKED IN PLAYBOY

 Y A lit was redefined by an adventuring set of brothers and one sleuthing young lady. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew created an ideal of teen hood for readers : be smart and aware of your surroundings, be polite, but don't let adults tell you you know nothing because you're a kid. You too can solve mysteries with a bit of pluck and luck. The group united in the 1970s for a TV series, but the girl sleuth edged out the boys to reign as Queen Supreme of the kid lit set. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are some of the best known literary characters worldwide.

Edward Sratmeyer created Frank and Joe Hardy in 1927 (pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.) Wanting to take his boy adventurers further, Sratmeyer added a mystery solving element. True to Sratmeyer Syndicate form the boys were teens : Frank, 18 - Joe, 16. One had dark hair - Frank, one blonde - Joe. Frank was logical, Joe was impetuous. They had a father - Fenton, a police detective. The mother figure role was filled by Aunt Gertrude, and an actual mother, Laura. 

Leslie McFarlane was given the task of writing The Hardy Boys books after Stratemeyer's initial run. His Hardy Boys were darker and more cynical ; adults and authorities were corrupt. McFarlane, upon being censured for this disregard for adults, stated he wanted to steer kids away from blind adherence to authority.

(Author opinion - considering the books were written when Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were rising to power, McFarlane was correct.) The 1950s Syndicate purge expunged any mention of persons of color from The Hardy Boys, instead of correcting the racist and xenophobic portrayals of non-white characters in earlier books. The Hardy Boys were spun off into a series of television episodes aired on the Mickey Mouse club, one of the first kid centered TV shows. The Hardy Boys books were rebooted in 2005 for a generation of modern kids.

Stella Strong - Diana Dare - Nan Nelson - became legendary Nancy Drew in 1930. Stratemeyer wanted a female version of the Hardy Boys. Mildred Wirt Benton won the ghostwriter contract (pseudonym Carolyn Keene.) Stratemeyer died before Nancy Drew and became a phenomenon. One of his last directives was for Wirt to make Nancy "less bold" - thank goodness she didn't listen!

Nancy, in her first books, was 16 - already graduated from high school. Attractive, blonde haired and blue-eyed, Nancy lived in a world where money, and all it bought, was plentiful and seemingly unimportant - quite different from the lives of the depression era teens devouring every page. Nancy was an instant hit. Girl readers finally had a heroine who, of course while remaining a polite, feminine ideal, ran head first into danger. Nancy had two best friends - delicate and feminine Bess, and "Tomboy" George, and a beau - college student Ned Nickerson. Her father Carson Drew was an attorney, and her mother figure was housekeeper Hannah Gruen. The Stratmeyer overhaul of their books in the early 1950s made Nancy Titian-haired (red) and 18.

Nancy Drew sold 80 million books, published in 45 languages. She has inspired films, TV series, and video games. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Sandra Sotomayor count Nancy Drew as an influence. She has been modernized and updated for future generations.

In 1977 The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries debuted on ABC. The stories were original, with only a few episodes coming from the books. The show alternated weeks in its first season, one week the Hardy Boys, the next week Nancy. The Hardy Boys episodes edged out Nancy Drew in popularity, due to Sean Cassidy's (Joe) teen idol status. For the record, if I had been a teen (and not 2 years old,) I would have been all about Parker Stevens / Frank Hardy. Nancy Drew was played by model Pamela Sue Martin. Producers decided the second season should be slightly more Hardy Boys centric, with a few Nancy Drew focused episodes, but should have more Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew crossover episodes.  Pamela Sue Martin posed for a Playboy pictorial, causing a great deal of controversy. In the interview Martin said she had decided to leave the show based on the phasing out of Nancy Drew. Martin was replaced with another actress, but the show lost viewers. The third season was Hardy Boys only, but was canceled soon into the season.

Nancy Drew has been the focus of films since 1938. She has been portrayed cinematically by Bonita Granville, Emma Roberts and Sophia Lillis. The CW revived her in 2019, but added a supernatural element and darkened the atmosphere, capitalizing on the success of Riverdale. Nancy Drew has stood the test of time. Girls see her intrepidness, her ingenuity, her intelligence, her inquisitiveness and her kindness as aspirational. For years to come, whenever there's a mystery at a spooky old house, Nancy and Company will pile into her roadster, and head off bravely into danger.

SOURCES :

The Hardy Boys. Wikipedia. 

Nancy Drew. Wikipedia.

FURTHER READING :

Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her 

THE WIDOW SPY - MEGAN CAMPISI - REVIEW

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

From James Bond to cold war secret traders spies have long been a source of fascination. But do we think of a lady in Civil War petticoats when we think of the word spy? We should, thanks to Kate  Warne (profiled on T Y D K Y N T K.) Megan Campisi's novel The Widow Spy begins with Warne and The Pinkertons investigating Rose Greenhow, real life socialite spy for the confederacy. Campisi's first person narrative takes readers right into Warne's mindset as America's first female detective and the excitement and burden that causes Warne. Warne is intelligent and fierce, and free with her opinions - (distilling Romeo and Juliet down to "the lesson is to obey your parents.") The Widow Spy follows Warne and The Pinkertons throughout Greenhow's arrest and trial for espionage and Warne recounts her life and Pinkerton cases throughout the novel. Through The Widow Spy Kate Warne, one of America's most important and most forgotten women, gets the recognition she deserves.

GIRL DETECTIVES WHO DON'T REALLY DELIGHT

 

After Edward Stratmeyer's death his daughters Edna Squier and Harriet Stratmeyer Adams took over the syndicate. Edna and Harriet could not find a buyer for the syndicate due to the depression. Edna covered daily business operations and Harriet worked with writers and outlined future novels like her father. Edna chose not to continue her work with the company, leaving full control to Harriet. 

Harriet introduced new series to the Stratemeyer world, focusing on strong female characters. Perhaps because Harriet never wanted to be a proper young lady. Born to Edward and his wife in 1892, Harriet climbed trees and read books. She attended Wellesley College, graduating in 1914. She edited manuscripts, but did not write herself. She married in 1915 and had four children.

In the 1950s and '60s Harriet Adams was forced by the publisher Gossett and Dunlop to revise past books, changing racist language and situations to reflect "modern" times. Rewrites caused some plots to change entirely and whole books had to be rewritten. In the late 1970s Adams wanted the two most popular series to go into paperback. Gossett and Dunlop to offence, and sued. For the first time the public learned of the syndicate and its pseudonymic ghost writers. Adams died in 1982, and Simon and Schuster bought the syndicate in 1984.

Before his death in 1930, Edward Stratemeyer created a new character and outlined the first four books in a series, but died shortly after she hit the page. Mildred Wirt Benson was the ghost writer chosen to bring this character to life, as she did other girl characters for the syndicate. Benson gave readers girls who acted bravely, and intelligently, who never gave a thought to being proper, though they were well-mannered and polite. She had her own separate journalism career under her own name. But the work she did under one particular pseudonym will live on for generations.

Mildred Wirt Benson was born in 1905 in Ladora, Iowa. In 1925 she earned an English degree from the University of Iowa. In 1927 she earned a Masters in Journalism degree. In 1928 she married Asa Wirt ; the couple had one child. Asa Wirt died in 1947 ; Mildred married George Benson, the editor of the newspaper for which she wrote, in 1950. He died in 1959. Benson traveled and learned to fly planes, never backing down from an adventure. She died in age 96 in 2002.

Wirt sold stories to several magazines and in 1926 she applied to the Stratmeyer Syndicate. Stratemeyer was impressed by the portfolio Wirt sent in. She was offered the Ruth Fielding series (pseudonym Alice Emerson.) After meeting Edward Stratmeyer at her interview, she never spoke to him again. Ghost writers submitted their work through correspondence. She was paid $125 - $250 per book (equal to three months pay at her newspaper job.) She could not claim rights to her published works nor any pseudonym she wrote under. She wrote Ruth Fielding books until 1934 when Gossett and Dunlop canceled the series. She picked up two more series - Kay Tracy and The Dana Girls. She worked for the syndicate until the changes of the 1950s. When Gossett and Dunlop sued the syndicate Wirt refuted Harriet Stratmeyer Adams claims that Harriet wrote the most noted series of girl books.

Wirt was an early day girl power champion. Heroines - albeit ruled by syndicate regulations - relied on their wits to get them out of trouble ; no being rescued by a dreamy boy. But boys were part of the story, as allies and admirers. Her Kay Tracy series (pseudonym Francis K. Judd,) about a teen girl detective, began in 1934. Kay was a teenage sleuth attending high school. She faced interference from jealous classmate Ethel Eaton - the perfect moniker for a teen bitch. Kate has two friends and a boyfriend. She solved mysteries with the help of friends, but did little else. Wirt wrote volumes 3 through 12 and volume 14. Outlines were extremely detailed, making the writing somewhat abrupt. Kay Tracy was found to be a bit drab, but that is probably a result of the syndicate wanting to repeat the success of their most famous creation. But that teen sleuth was lightning-in-a-bottle one of a kind and any similar character seemed a pale imitator. Still, Kay Tracy lasted almost ten years, ending in 1942.

Another pale imitator was Wirt's third series for the syndicate, The Dana Girls (pseudonym Carolyn Keene.) Sisters Jean and Louise Dana solve mysteries near the boarding school where they reside. This time around the protagonists were orphans - they are looked after by a sea captain uncle and his sister, their spinster aunt, and a maid. Louise, dark haired, 17 is more serious than 16 year old fair "gay-hearted" Jean. The girls face off against a nemesis / hench girl duo - Lettie Briggs and Ina Mason. Wirt did not enjoy writing the series, and lack of enthusiasm shone through. Though lasting from 1934 to 1979 the series never really sparked with readers.

Even though other girl characters would never reach the heights of the most famous syndicate success, they set a presidence for teen girl Y A lit. Female readers found sharp, smart girls who earned the co-operation and respect of the adults in their lives. Adult supported their crime solving, but intervened only when necessary. Away at boarding school the Dana sisters could be themselves without pressure to be what parents or guardians wanted them to be. Marriage was most certainly not an aspiration to these young girls. They were admired for their intellect, which few past literary girls had been. Both series ran their course and were discontinued due to the depression and the onset of World War II. Times were tough, there was only room for one teen sleuth heroine.

ARTICLES :

Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. Wikipedia. 

Mildred Wirt Benson. Wikipedia.

Kay Tracey. Wikipedia. 

The Dana Girls. Wikipedia.

FURTHER READING :

JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES ~ MISS MORGAN'S BOOK BRIGADE ~ REVIEW

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

Atria Books

War! What is it good for? Bringing out the best in women, if Janet Skeslien Charles' novel Miss Morgan's Book Brigade has anything to say. Women are left to do everything else when men are planning battles and fighting during wartime.  Miss Morgan's Book Brigade tells the story of a troop of American women in France helping women left behind. Some women are widowed and alone, others have farms around and families to provide for. These women and children are in need of food and a variety of support.

Anne Morgan (daughter of famed Gilded Age financier J. P. Morgan) and her lady companion Anne Murray Dike put out a siren call for women from all backgrounds and skill levels to journey to France and offer assistance to those in need. One such woman is Jessie "Kitt" Carson, a librarian charges with rebuilding a library and offering bookmobile andl storytime services. Known as CARDS - Le Comite Americain pour les Regions Devastees de France (the American Committee for Devistated Regions of France.)

Jessie finds friendship and romance among the ruined countryside,

for devastated regions of France), while helping women regain their dignity.

The novel also tells the story of librarian / aspiring writer Wendy Peterson, who, in 1987, finds the CARDS' story in dusty New York Public Library boxes. Wendy's story is less compelling then Jessie's, but Wendy's function was to bring the CARDS' story public. Charles' writing puts the reader right on the battlefield amongst the devastation. To know the CARDS and Jessie Carson were real women makes the story all the more intimate and satisfying. Miss Morgan's Book Brigade is an important story about everyday bravery, the power of women working together, and the importance of books.

QUEEN CLEO

"Drinking rum and coca-cola..." The Andrews Sisters knew what they were singing about, as rum and Coca-Cola are a winning combination. But during prohibition rum was banned along with all other alcohol. Gertrude "Cleo" Lythgoe, "Queen of the Bahamas" ruled rum running for a brief period in the 1920s, in a turban and snake bracelets no less. Gertrude Lythgoe, born in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1888 lived a hard life as the youngest of 10 children. As a young woman she found work as a stenographer at a British liquor importers in London.

Gertrude suggestion the company move to Nassau in the British territory of the Bahamas. Prohibition was a profitable era for women entrepreneurs. Women would make liquor at home - moonshine, bathtub gin - then pay men to "run" it for them, transporting the liquor by boat from islands to the coast of the United States. Gertrude's liquor was made in real liquor producing facilities. Gertrude sold her liquor to Bahamian citizens, who then ran the liquor to the U.S., so Gertrude technically did not disobey U.S. law.

Gertrude was tall, thin, and beautiful. With her dark good looks she was called Cleo for her resemblance to Cleopatra. She often wore turbans, dangling earrings and bracelets featuring snake motifs. Gertrude's alcohol business made her very wealthy, but her gender made her suspect amongst the male-dominated field. Gertrude had no problem pulling a pistol on any man who said she didn't belong in the world of liquor trade. Gertrude left liquor in 1926. She felt jinxed because one of her boats sank and she was arrested for for illegally selling whiskey in the United States. She moved to Detroit and ran a car rental business for 20 years. She published an autobiography in 1964. Gertrude Lythgoe died in 1974, a forgotten relic of an alcohol-less era gone by.

SOURCES ~ 

Baird, Sarah. Meet the Swashbuckling Female Rumrunners Who Ran Prohibition. Saveur, 2 July 2015.

Gertrude Lythgoe. Wikipedia.

Richardson,Vanessa, host. "Queen of the Rum Row - Gertrude Lythgoe. PT 1 \ PT 2." Female Criminals, Parcast, 22 and 29 May 2019.

BREAKING RULES (AND CODE)

America owes quite a debt to a quaker woman from Indiana that few people have ever heard of. Elizebeth Friedman broke code for the U.S. government for several years, from World War I into the days of prohibition era rum runners, to World War II. Born in Huntington, Indiana, Elizebeth love reading and learning. Her father disapproved of sending her to college, but she offered to pay him back, with interest. She studied Greek, Latin, and German. She worked briefly as a principal at a private school, but left because the job did not satisfy her intellectually.

Elizebeth looked for employment at the Newberry Library in Chicago. She asked to see the library's Shakespeare folio. The librarian noted her interest in Shakespeare and introduced her to George Fabyan, an industrialist who used as well to build an estate where he assembled intelligent individuals, an early think tank. Fabian hired Elizebeth and put her to work with Elizabeth Wells Gallup, a scholar trying to prove Francis Bacon was the true author of works attributed to shakespeare. She met geneticist William Friedman at the think tank and the pair married.

In 1918 William and Elizebeth worked for the War Department, in the Department of Ciphers, the only cryptology facility in the U.S. at the time. After the end of World War I, the pair worked for the Army Signal Corps, decoding messages sent by rum runners to the U.S. during prohibition. Elizebeth decrypted two years worth of messages in a few months, crippling the illegal importation of liquor from islands outside of the U.S. In 1931 the Coast Guard created a code breaking unit with Elizebeth and William in charge. Elizebeth took a break from work, from 1923 to 1925, to have the couple's two children.

William continued his government work, breaking code sent by Nazis to South America, and helped thwart Nazi invasion of the U. S. Elizebeth rejoined William, and the two began to coding messages for the U.S. Navy. The pair used enigma machines and traded intel with Bletchley Park (where is Elizebeth Friedman's Oscar nominated movie?) The work became too much for William and his health began to suffer. The pair retired, and wrote a book stating that Francis Bacon did not write Shakespeare's works. William died in 1969. Elizebeth compiled their work in the years after, dying in 1980. Documents declassified in 2008 revealed the extent of her work. America owes its freedom to a Quaker pacifist Shakespeare scholar who remains largely unknown.

SOURCES :

Angelucci, Ashley "Elizebeth Smith Friedman." National Women's History Museum. 

Elizebeth Friedman. Wikipedia.

FURTHER MEDIA ~

PODCASTS : 

Graham, Beckett / Vollenweider, Susan, hosts. "Elizebeth Smith Friedman." The History Chicks, Episode 129, Wondery, 1 July 2019. 

VIDEOS : 

Elizebeth Saves the Queen Mary. The Codebreaker. American Experience, PBS.

THE LAST TWELVE MILES ~ ERIKA ROBUCK ~ REVIEW

 

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

Source Books

Who knew rum running was a girl power game? During Prohibition many women took over liquor making and transport operations. The Last Twelve Miles tells the story of two women destined to do battle. Both are intelligent. Both are mothers. And both women believe strongly that what they do for a living is important enough to face ridicule for being women in a man's world.

Elizebeth Friedman is a code breaker employed by the coast guard. Rum Runners - people who sold and transported liquor from island nations near the U.S. - use coded messages to communicate. Elizebeth Friedman breaks complex codes like someone playing wordle. Marie Waite is a poor woman who wants to give her two children a home and an education. Taught by Cleo Lythgoe, Queen of the rum runners, Marie forms her own operation and will do whatever it takes to rule rum running. The Last Twelve Miles is a story of two women both at the top of their games but on opposite sides of the law. But which lady will win the battle and at what cost?

BOYS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN

The Stratemeyer Syndicate wrote books for both boys and girls. Their books for girls mostly present idealistic heroines who were quiet and good. Their heroines faced light obstacles easy to overcome. By the end of their series the girls were married or near marriageable age and mature. In other words, they were boring.

Boys, however, had rough and tumble role models, boys who got into scrapes and had adventures. The first of these were The Rover Boys, whose antics lasted from 1899 to 1926 and covered 30 books that sold 5 million copies. Written by Stratemeyer himself under the pseudonym Arthur M. Winfield, three brothers - Tom, Sam, and Dick Rover were left in the care of their father's brother and sister-in-law. Their mother died - this was a common theme in Stratemeyer Syndicate books. Mothers told boys to comb their hair and to not get their clothes dirty. Mothers certainly wouldn't let boys traipse around getting into mischief, so mothers did not exist in syndicate land.

The three Rover Boys were students at a military boarding school. Adventure seemed to follow the boys wherever they went. After volume 21 the books focused on the sons of the three original Rover Boys. Boys who read the books found idols who lived in a world that touched on then modern travel innovations like automobiles and airplanes, as luxury travel was not yet commonplace for the poorer class. Most boys who read the books probably had never traveled away from their own home towns, but through the Rover Boys they could see more of the world than they ever thought they could.

Boys also had Tom Swift, (pseudonym - Victor Appleton) a young inventor. Swift had little education, like prominent scientific figures of the day Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison. Again Tom Swift had no mother. His father ran a company and a housekeeper filled the mother figure role. Tom Swift was the book series for science minded boys. Tom Swift started in 1910 and lasted until 1941 in various iterations. The series switched over to Tom Swift Jr. in 1954. As son of the original Tom Swift, junior took on the Sci-Fi interest of the 1950s. The Tom Swift series inspired a board game, but scripts for radio, film, and television series never came to be.

Somewhere in the middle of boy-lit and girl-lit was The Bobbsey Twins series. Focusing on two sets of twins, the series (pseudonym Laura Lee Hope) began in 1904 and lasted until 1979 an, astonishing 75 years. Bert and Nan were 12, Freddy and Flossie were 6, and came from an upper middle class family. 11 authors covered the twins during their initial run. Their father owned a lumberyard, but in this series the characters had a mother. Nan and Bert were dark, Freddy and Flossy, fair. The twins actually aged in the books, unlike other heroes and heroines of the syndicate. The books covered random family adventures until a mystery solving element was added to later books (due to the success of the Syndicate's more famous mystery solving series.) The Bobbsey Twins reflected life for many of their readers - younger kids could identify with having bossy older siblings; older kids identified with having pesky younger siblings.

That was the most important thing to Syndicate - that children find characters with whom they can identify, and keep reading.

SOURCES :

The Rover Boys. Wikipedia.

Tom Swift. Wikipedia.

The Bobbsey Twins. Wikipedia.

THE BIRTH OF A PHENOMENON

In 1927 two brothers solved The Mystery of the Tower Treasure. Three years later in 1930 an intrepid teen girl solved The Secret of the Old Clock. Teenagers solving mysteries became a literary trope, but The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were just a link in a long chain of kid lit created by one man. Edward Stratemeyer struck gold when he formed a syndicate to produce children's literature. Though some of the syndicate's characters have gone to the literary graveyard, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew endure even today.

Edward Stratemeyer wrote 13,000 books under various pseudonyms. He would outline plots and pass them on to ghost writers who filled in the story. Stratemeyer was born in 1863 in Elizabeth, New Jersey to German immigrant parents ; his father was a tobacconist. Stratemeyer found inspiration in the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches stories he read. When Stratemeyer was a teen he operated a printing press in the basement of his father's shop. He distributed stories he wrote to family and friends.

In 1889 he sold a story he wrote for $76 - a large sum for the time. In 1890 he opened a paper store in Newark. Stratemeyer wrote stories under pseudonyms in various genres. In 1894 he completed his first full-length book. He finished work began by his boyhood hero Horatio Alger when Alger became too sick to write.

Stratemeyer begin writing the Rover Boys series in 1899 and started his syndicate in 1905. Stratemeyer recognized that entertaining books for children were an untapped market. Children's books were usually morally aspirational. Stratemeyer's characters had adventures and traveled. Stratmeyer would contract ghost writers to write under pseudonyms he created. Books were written under pseudonyms because pseudonyms seemed to sell better ; children might be confused or turned off if their favorite series suddenly had a different author. Stratemeyer would outline the plots of the books and the ghost writers would flesh out the story.

Characters never varied and even though locations changed, the situations were always similar. Books were always written in a series, never a standalones. So, Nancy Drew would always live in River Heights. Her father would always be an attorney. Nancy would always be 18. She would never have friends other than Bess and George (unless they were one-off plot contrived friends who were never mentioned again.) Ned Nickerson would be her only boyfriend. Nancy could go to a ranch, or a ski resort, but never too far from home and never overseas. She would always solve the mystery by the end of the book. Each book series had their own particular formula. The formula system worked and The Stratemeyer Syndicate sold massive volumes of books and made millions of dollars. Stratemeyer died in 1930 at age 67. His daughters would take over and guide the syndicate into a new era.

ARTICLES :

Edward Stratemeyer. Wikipedia.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate. Wikipedia.

T T T - JUNE 4

BOOKS I HAD VERY STRONG EMOTIONS ABOUT

Some of these books made me angry because they could have been better than they were, others made me do the ugly cry, and a few shaped me as a reader

The Girl Who Chased the Moon ~ Sarah Addison Allen

I love Addison's particular brand of magical realism, but I have to say this is one of the stupidest books I have ever read

House Under Snow ~ Jill Bialosky

You feel the sorrow, pain, and frustration Anna feels for her mother who just can't get out from under her own grief to take care of her children

Tell the Wolves I'm Home ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

This story of the young girl dealing with the death of a beloved uncle and subsequently getting to know his longtime boyfriend had me absolutely emotionally wrecked

The Masterpiece ~ Fiona Davis

Another book that I viscerally loathed. The story was nonsensical and convoluted, and half the characters I didn't give a damn about

84, Charing Cross Road ~ Helen Hanff 

I loved this tiny book of letters about literary friendship more than I ever expected to

To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee

Probably the first book that made me realize that life just isn't fair, yet you still should never stop fighting for the truth and you should always be a kind person no matter what

Little House on the Prairie Series ~  Laura Ingalls Wilder

These are the first books that I really connected to. I used to think about how different Laura Ingalls Wilder's life was from mine when she was my age, but yet we had certain things in common. These books were the first historical fiction I ever read, and Laura was the first character I truly identified with

The People We Keep ~ Allison Larkin

Another book that I absolutely unexpectedly adored

Do Tell ~ Lindsay Lynch

This book made me angry - in a good way - well, maybe not good because I cannot believe that in 2024 we are still treating sexual assault and sexual harassment victims the same way we did in the 1930s and 40s

Everything I Never Told You ~ Celeste Ng

An absolute gut punch of a novel involving feminism, teenage angst and depression, and family drama