Teens and young adult women populate the majority of stories in Girls of a Certain Age, an intriguing first collection by Maria Adelmann. "Pets Are for Rich Kids" features two girls, one whose constant needing and wanting makes her "callous," the other whose taken-for-granted easy comfort allows her to believe she's generous. Inequitable friendship reappears again with an older cast in "Middlemen," about a young woman whose wealthier roommate takes advantage of her emotionally and sexually.
In "Only the Good," meaningless hook-ups leave a young woman pregnant, with only her brother for comfort. But Adelmann saves the best for last with "The Wayside." Here, a 17-year-old spends her summer before college working at the titular, historical Concord, Mass., home where Nathanial Hawthorne wrote some of his most famous works. Relationships with her divorced parents, a beloved but missing sibling, impatient friends, her first (manipulative) lover, older colleagues will all define her journey toward maturity.
Throughout Adelmann's observant stories, what proves most affecting is her ability to create recognizable women and girls leading convincing, albeit challenging, daily lives. Adelmann writes with a sharp, detailed precision that can immediately reveal complex situations: for a young deaf girl, deciphering her mother's words is to watch "her lips like two pieces of ribbon"; the distinctive smell of pickle juice at lunch becomes the leitmotif for a young woman's desperation to conform to the beauty standards that might get her seen on screen. With eyes wide open, Adelmann carefully observes and meticulously records what happens to these girls of a certain age, paying special attention to those too easily ignored, overlooked and dismissed. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon