The New Girls
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{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}}{{About|the 1979 novel|the television series|New Girl}}
The New Girls is a 1979 novel by American author Beth Gutcheon.
The novel, which describes the experiences of five young women in 1960s America,{{Cite journal|title=HARPERPERENNIAL|last=Torkildson|first=Sandi|date=1996|journal=Feminist Bookstore News: Feminist Bookstore News|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28036375|volume=19|issue=2|jstor=community.28036375|page=130}} was based on Gutcheon's experiences at Miss Porter's School.{{Cite book|last=Carter|first=Graydon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iCEwDwAAQBAJ|title=Vanity Fair's Schools For Scandal: The Inside Dramas at 16 of America's Most Elite Campuses—Plus Oxford!|date=2017-08-15|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-1-5011-7374-5|pages=97|language=en|author-link=Graydon Carter}} Some characters experience anorexia over the course of the novel.{{Sfn|White|1985|p=177}} It also describes the head of school's adverse reaction to the use of the term "diaphragm" in a student play.{{Sfn|White|1985|p=186}}
Spieler likens it to works such as The Secret History, Gilmore Girls, and Gossip Girl, as all these texts revolve around an outsider entering into an elite boarding school environment.{{Cite journal|last=Spieler|first=Sophie|date=2014-05-17|title=Between Meritocracy and the Old Boy Network: Elite Education in Contemporary American Literature|url=https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/article/view/186|journal=Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies|language=en|volume=15|issue=1|pages=4|doi=10.5283/COPAS.186}}
Lisa Birnbach, in a follow-up to The Official Preppy Handbook, includes The New Girls on "the true prep master reading list".{{Cite book|last1=Birnbach|first1=Lisa|url=https://archive.org/details/trueprepitswhole00birn/page/180/mode/1up|title=True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World|last2=Kidd|first2=Chip|date=2010|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|isbn=978-0-307-59421-1|location=New York|pages=180|language=en|oclc=668227883|author-link=Lisa Birnbach|author-link2=Chip Kidd}}
References
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Sources
- {{Cite book|last=White|first=Barbara Anne|url=https://archive.org/details/growingupfemalea0000whit|title=Growing Up Female: Adolescent Girlhood in American Fiction|date=1985|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=9780313250651|location=Westport, Connecticut|language=en|oclc=1149302332|url-access=registration}}
Further reading
- {{Cite book|last=Gutcheon|first=Beth Richardson|url=https://archive.org/details/newgirls00gutc|title=The New Girls|date=1996|publisher=Harper Perennial|isbn=9780060977023|location=New York|oclc=1150870181|url-access=registration|via=Internet Archive}}
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