Dreams of Significant Girls

Gr 10 Up—At a posh Swiss summer boarding school in 1971, three very different girls share their problems and dreams: Ingrid, a wild, sexually liberated Midwesterner; Vivian, a Jewish Cuban-American aspiring chef; and Shirrin, an Iranian noblewoman and mathematical genius. Writing in turn, their characters are fully developed and believable. Each voice is wholly individual, as are their disparate approaches to the impending freedoms and perils of adulthood. Loosely analogous to Ann Brashares's "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (Delacorte) and Zoey Dean's "A-List" series (Little, Brown), this title is more mature and subtle than merely a rich-chick friendship story. The glamour element is tempered by the historical and European context, as is the feminist approach to sexuality—a major element of the novel, including oral sex, equestrian orgasms, masturbation, and abortion. There's a touching side story as well, involving the pasts of Ingrid's former-Nazi father and Vivian's Warsaw Ghetto-survivor dad. With its 1970s patina and 1983 epilogue (post Iranian Revolution, crafted to increase readers' concerns about Shirrin), the novel reads like an adult book being marketed to teens. Despite the occasionally far-fetched situations and rather flat supporting cast, this is nonetheless a title that many mature young women will appreciate.—Rhona Campbell, formerly at Washington, DC Public Library