PRAISE FOR GIRLS IN PERIL

“The dreamy plural voice that tells this story evokes, perfect pitch, the collective comingled self of American female adolescence. In suburban summer boredom, Boren’s girls endear and endanger themselves, playing games with deadly consequences. ”
—Antonya Nelson, author of Female Trouble

“In the vein of Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye or Jeffrey Eugenides’ Virgin Suicides, here’s a coming-of-age story with a little extra—a feel for the innocent omniscience of children, a stealing sense of dread, and (not least) a mysterious, fetishized third thumb. Boren’s tale glows with the luminous hyperreality of nostalgia, without the rosy sentimentality that usually entails.”
—Peter Ho Davies, author of Equal Love

“Karen Lee Boren’s novella beautifully differentiates itself by taking us inside that little-known tribe we call girlhood. Who can resist the restless energy, the strength, and the wholeness of these hard-worked midwestern daughters before they individuate into women in this perilous world? Not this reader. I love these girls.”
—Cathleen Calbert, author of Bad Judgment

“The collective voice that drives Karen Lee Boren’s first novel is rapturous and steely-eyed at once, and this book beautifully captures the gestures and sensations—huge, tiny, exquisite, and excruciating—of her girls in peril. One is left elated by the power of this story, and marveling at Boren’s skill.”
—Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land

REVIEWS OF GIRLS IN PERIL

Set during the 1970s in a neighborhood of eastern Europeans near the shores of Lake Michigan, this crisp, self-assured tale of five girls, ranging in age from 11 to 13, is told collectively, in the first-person plural, and centers on the group's athletic ringleader, Jeanne Macek. The only daughter of 12 siblings, Jeanne possesses an extra, baby thumb on one hand that, rather than being an object of scorn, holds talismanic power for the group. Spying on the ripe, perfumed Mrs. Sobczyk as she makes her Avon lady rounds, or witnessing the sexual wrestling of Jeanne's dreamy older brother, Joey, and his lovely girlfriend up the street, they are fascinated and repelled. Then Jeanne’s parents trick her into going away; on her return, the spell of childhood vanishes: Jeanne is pressed increasingly into household chores, and one of the girls, Lauren Jankowski, awakens sexually and challenges Jeanne's authority. Although it lacks the elegance of Jeffrey Eugenides’s similar debut, The Virgin Suicides, Boren hits her mark.
—Publishers Weekly, April 10, 2006