Why read Anthropology of an American Girl?

Book cover of Anthropology of an American Girl

Book description

This is what it’s like to be a high-school-age girl.
To forsake the boyfriend you once adored.
To meet the love of your life, who just happens to be your teacher.
To discover for the first time the power of your body and mind.

This is what it’s like to…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Anthropology of an American Girl as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Caroline Wolff

Author

I originally read Thayer Hamann when I was in high school and identified so deeply with Evie, the protagonist, and also saw in her the person I yearned to become. Evie shares the intricacies of the teenage girl experience, beginning with her high school career in East Hampton and spanning through her undergraduate years at NYU.

Her perspective is graceful, smart, and deeply feeling, with her heart fully exposed on her sleeve—much in the way mine was as a teenager (and still is, in many ways). There’s an epic love story at the heart of the novel, as well (even…

From Caroline's list on for adults about being a teenager.

JoAnneh Nagler

Author

Anthropology of an American Girl is the beautiful tale of Eveline, who lives on Long Island with her barely-making it divorced mom in a wealthy Hamptons town in the late 1970s and 1980s.

It’s a coming-of-age story of finding her independence and need, best described in her own musings: she reveals that her parents loved her but were unaware of her need in the world to be shepherded and helped; to be supported.

They needed her to be instantly independent, even as a teenager, but that didn't make it so; because they didn’t have the bandwidth to see she needed…

From Joanneh's list on sensual fiction (that doesn’t leave out the good stuff).