"Blueprints for Building Better Girls "delves into the lives of an eclectic cast of archetypal female characters--from the high school slut to the good girl, the struggling artist to the college party girl, the wife who yearns for a child to the reluctant mother--mapping America's shifting cultural landscape from the late 1970s to the present day. Its interconnected stories explore the commonly shared but rarely spoken of experiences that build girls into women and women into wives and mothers. In revealing all their vulnerabilities and twisting our preconceived notions of who they are, Elissa Schappell alters how we think about the nature of female identity and how it evolves.

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'Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?'

A heart-warming tale of love, sisterhood and hardship during the New England Civil War, Little Women tells the story of the lovable March family. Meg, Beth, Jo and Amy try to support their mother at home while their father is away at war and enter into various scrapes and adventures as they do so. Alcott beautifully interweaves bad times and good as her characters struggle with the trials and tribulations of growing up and their relationships with one another.