Cleavage: Breakaway Fiction for Real Girls [Paperback]

Cleavage is a collection of short stories about the challenges faced by young girls as they navigate their way through the turbulence of adolescence. There are 15 stories here, some by first-time authors, and for the most part they are smart and satisfying tales. The dialogue is sharp and believably teenaged, the content often embarrassingly true to life, and the tone is never condescending. These are stories about whether or not to wear make-up or shave one’s legs, about how to get a boy to like you, about wanting to fill out a bra or wishing one didn’t fill it out quite so well. Ultimately, though, these stories are about coming into one’s own and negotiating a selfhood that is somewhere between what is expected and what is desired. The strongest stories of the bunch needn’t be considered suitable exclusively for young readers. Kelle Ngan’s “The Puberty Theory” is about a bright child who employs clever problem-solving techniques in an effort to seduce the object of her affection. Of course, her analysis looks better in theory than it does in practice. Wendy A. Lewis’s story, “The Giant Regina,” is a very fine and funny piece of magical realism. The internal monologue of Claire Talon’s character in “Bare” is believable and written with so much love that it is impossible not to sympathize. Other stories are less successful. Ann Sutherland’s “Faceless on the Farm”  is a dogmatic epistolary tale told through e-mail, and Lisabeth Jackson’s “Presenting Miss Gorilla Legs” lacks believable character development. That said, co-editors Loughead and Shipley have assembled an eminently readable collection here, one that may be as enlightening and enjoyable for mothers as their teenage daughters.

"The stories from Cleavage will buoy [teenage girls] up and remind them that they, too, will survive...Highly recommended."