With the post-menopausal generation reappraising what it means to be an older woman, the sheen of youth has become exposed. Women are told to fear the ageing process, but the truth is, I would not return to my teenage years, nor would any of the women I know. The worst part of growing older is watching the next generation go through it all again.
Female bullying is central to Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s fourth book, West Girls, which aligns the misery of girlhood with the tyranny of conventional beauty. Weaving interconnected stories around a revolving cast of characters growing up in Western Australia, the novel cracks open the toxic power dynamics between a privileged huddle of “Blondes” and the culturally diverse girls they seek to marginalise.
