Coming of Age

The theme of coming of age is communicated through the revisions of the lists that Maddie and Queenie/Julie make together of all of the things that scare them. The updates to the list throughout the novel communicate the two women’s greater experience and growing maturity.

The lists are first introduced in the November 10th entry of the narrator’s confession, in which she refers to herself in the third person by the nickname Queenie. The first list reveals that the girls are still inexperienced and that their fears are relatively superficial and unimportant. The things that the two women come up with as their greatest fears include Queenie’s joking fear of breaking her nails, her fear of getting old, and her fear of her college porter. In the November 11th entry of the narrator’s confession, she recalls Maddie telling her...