"I smiled, like a crazed person, showing too many teeth."
This is exactly how I responded when my mother slapped me---or I laughed in her face, a great fake laugh. It's Evie from "The Girls." This book is so precise in its details of the painful, careful boredom of cultivating femininity. I feel validated reading it but regretful at the time wasted. How pointless it all was! How much time wasted, feverishly feathering my bangs into a limp, crunchy chunk, tight-rolling my pastel pants over and over into that perfect tightness, gleaning real pleasure out of my pink high top Chucks---just like everyone else had! I thought this was life, and it lasted into adulthood, it smothered me and gloved me from reality.
