Feminism

Much more than the first novel in the series, this story carries heavy feminist themes. The author is contemporary, but the setting is the mid-1960s, the neighborhood still small and provincial. Lila and Elena are sixteen when the book begins, at the age when they should be looking at the wide open opportunities ahead with excitement. However, they find themselves in the bind in which women sat for centuries: they could marry or study. Barring those, they could work, like Carmen or Ada, but it was best to also have a man if a young woman was just going to work in a shop.

Both Lila and Elena are frightened that their lives will mean nothing. In many ways, this fear is bigger than their competitiveness or their jealousies. The old, sagging, directionless figures of Melina and Mrs. Greco are the symbols to these two...