"In Girls on the Verge, twenty-seven-year-old Vendela Vida goes to whatever lengths necessary to investigate a wide variety of both traditional and contemporary rituals girls use to fashion their own identities." "From sneaking in the back entrance of a debutante ball in Houston to watching young brides tie the knot in drive-through wedding chapels in Las Vegas, from observing quinceaneras in Miami posing for their "sweet fifteen" photographs while wearing tiaras (and sometimes even bikinis) to participating in a witches' Halloween gathering in Salem, Vida interviews, imitates, scrutinizes, and socializes with young women who are making a commitment to a group of other young women, a gang, or a boy - all before they're twenty-one years old. Some of these initiations are sanctioned, and even organized, by their parents, while others are done in spite of - or perhaps because of - their parents' objections."--Jacket.

BSLW RECAT 2023