Sixteen-year-old Nina isn't made of sugar and spice and everything nice. She is flesh and blood and desire, but she longs to know real love. Unconditional love. The kind her mother told her doesn't exist.
National Book Award Finalist
Reeling from a shameful breakup with a boy she unabashedly worshipped, Nina drifts between school and her days volunteering at a dog shelter. But she's looking for something more. A way to fix her mistakes. Unsure of how to move on, Nina peels back the moments that have shaped her and given her a view of girlhood distorted by violence and sacrifice. One that led her to do something unspeakable to a fellow student.
As Nina grapples with regret, strange memories of a trip to Italy with her mother start to surface. Layer by layer, Elana K. Arnold reveals their painful effect, and questions what love really means.
Raw, emotional writing and a frank portrayal of the world teen girls live in set this award-winning book apart as a stunning chronicle of self-acceptance.
What are they then, this horde, these women, if they are not the fawning lovers of their god? Who are they, free of the conditions they have accepted like layers of chains?
— A raw and honest examination of womanhood and what it means to be a female in our society: the objectification, expectations, etc.
