Girl

“A sweeping coming-of-age novel about the heroine’s passage from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood, in a society that diminishes females at every turn.” —NYTimes.com

“A powerful work that successfully shows the societal pressures that shape women’s lives.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“A lyrical and perceptive portrait…as subtle as it is poignant.” —Shelf Awareness

“A biographical novel about the lessons we pass down to the next generation.” —Book Riot, Must-Read 2022 Books in Translation

“It’s often difficult to explain how intimate, subtle, and corrosive misogyny is. With piercing nuance, poignant storytelling, and incisive observation, Laurens reveals exactly how it works: shaping our lives, our sense of self, our potential, our ambitions, and our relationships. Shaping us.” —Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger

“A lifetime of wisdom is compressed into two hundred pages in this heartbreaking coming-of-age tale. Growing up a girl, Laurens shows us, is an epic tragedy, an erotic nightmare, a riveting drama.” —Alice Robb, author of Why We Dream: The Science, Creativity and Transformative Power of Dreams

Praise for Little Dancer Aged Fourteen:

“An extended meditation on the tension between life and art, and the cost that the latter exacts from the former…the book insightfully examines themes of gender, class, power, and beauty…absorbing.” —The New Yorker

“[Laurens’s] curiosity is contagious, and after reading this elegant pas de deux between the author and her elusive subject, you will surely look at Degas’s celebrated tutu-clad ballerina with fresh eyes…moving…Laurens’s artful achievement is to make us see the person behind Degas’s famous sculpture.” —NPR