In one, a vain high school Casanova undergoes a forcible head-shaving and then refuses to return to school until his hair grows back. Their vigilante exploits start small, and amuse more than terrify. Preaching the gospel of women's liberation, Irene convinces the girls that they and their mothers have been oppressed by the men in their lives, and pushes them to settle the score.

The novel tells the story of a group of high school girls in small-town Michigan who come under the influence of a charismatic teacher named Irene Stark. I don't know if she would have objected to Lois Duncan - after all, her books were shelved in Young Adult - but to me, Duncan's books felt subversive, and none more so than my personal favorite, Daughters of Eve. My mom never checked up on my reading, probably because she thought she already knew what I liked - Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. Hopeless of learning my lines, I escaped into a world of books. Other girls my age seemed to know instinctively how to look and how to behave, while I stumbled around like an understudy on opening night. I was 13, then 14, then 15, but even as the years progressed, the grown-up world made no more sense to me than it ever had.Īt the cusp of adulthood, I felt as if everyone - my friends, the boy I liked, the adults in my life - had expectations of me that I didn't understand and despaired of ever meeting. This may be an exaggeration, but as I remember it, I spent all of the early '90s on the living room couch, drinking Diet Coke and diving into one book after another. Mary Stewart Atwell is the author of Wild Girls. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Daughters of Eve Author Lois Duncan

Daughters of eve by lois duncan