Editorial Review

“Finally, finally, a book that is fully girl, with all of the gore and grace of growing up female exposed. Arnold’s gorgeous prose takes us to all sorts of places to show us what girls are made of: a high-kill animal shelter, an abortion clinic, a bridge to nowhere that adventure seekers bungee-jump from, and all the way to Italy, to the sites of classical and religious art, where our narrator Nina learns the sacred tradition of how stories are told via the contortion and pain of a woman’s body. If you’re looking to enter the mind of a girl navigating sex, love, and her own physicality, look no further than What Girls Are Made Of.” —Carrie Mesrobian, author of the William C. Morris finalist Sex & Violence