The New Girls

by Beth Gutcheon

The New Girls is a resonant, engrossing novel about five girls during their formative prep-school years in the tumultuous mid-sixties. Into their reality of first-class trips to Europe, resort vacations, and deb parties enter the Vietnam War, the women's movement, and the sexual revolution. As the old traditions collide with the new society, the girls lose their innocence, develop a social conscience, and discover their sexuality -- blossoming into women shaped by their turbulent times.

Genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Boarding School, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Chick Lit, Young Adult

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Beth Gutcheon grew up in western Pennsylvania. She was educated at Harvard where she took an honors BA in English literature. She has spent most of her adult life in New York City, except for sojourns in San Francisco and on the coast of Maine. In 1978, she wrote the narration for a feature-length documentary on the Kirov ballet school, The Children of Theatre Street, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and she has made her living fulltime as a storyteller (novelist and sometime screenwriter) since then. Her novels have been translated into fourteen languages, if you count the pirate Chinese edition of Still Missing, plus large print and audio format. Still Missing was made into a feature film called Without a Trace, and also published in a Reader’s Digest Condensed version which particularly pleased her mother. Several of her novels have been national bestsellers, including the most recent, Leeway Cottage. All of the novels are available in new uniform paperback editions from HarperPerennial.

Reviews

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE, LOVE this book. It is a coming of age story about four girls at a fictional Miss Porters in the 1960's. It is chock full of deb balls and all things WASPY. If you ever attended boarding school (or know people who did) you will adore.

[Manik Sukoco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining read if flawed. It's chief problem is that it throws it's net too wide - by attempting to cover the formative years of 5 girls in only 347 pages, I finished the novel feeling as though I really didn't know any of them too well. One example: One of the girls, Lisa, suffers from anorexia during her first year at the school. The author goes into adequate detail explaining how Lisa suffered from the disease, but little else. By the Lisa's second year, she has recovered and is no longer anorexic. But the author never tells us how Lisa is able to recover.
Some story lines are quite lovely; I am particularly fond of one involving one of the girls, Jenny, who has a brief affair with her teacher. In describing Jenny's feelings, and the teacher's subsequent restraint, the passages are wistful, painful, and wildly romantic. I also enjoyed the descriptions of beach vacations, social dances, and stealing into the woods for cigarettes that are woven through the book. On those occasions, it's a lovely portrayal into the upper-class life of boarding school girls during the sixties. However, if you're looking for a book describing the interplay of the lives of these girls with the outside world at the time (such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War) you won't get much of it here.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book in the middle of the night and wanted to know how the rest of their lives played out. I wanted a book about each of the women covering the Miss Pratt's School years in more detail, I wanted to know...I guess the only word is "more". Somehow each of these women became so real that I actually felt I had graduated with them and knew them well. This is one of those rare books that almost begs to be read again to see how you missed the clues the first time.

[Marti · Rating 3 out of 5]

an early work by Gutcheon. She does better than most in capturing the prep school life and teenage angst.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. only 4 stars because the jumping between characters and remembering who everyone was was a bit boggling. I'd read a book for each one of the main characters if she wrote them!

[faydollazluvs2read · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is quite possibly the worst book I’ve ever read in my life

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my top ten - right up there with One True Thing, To Kill a Mockingbird and Nobody's Fool. I've read and re-read it. Comfort food. Focuses on about a dozen people at a girl's pre-college finishing school. The characters are so rich. Each one is "true". (Hate to sound Hemingway-esque there.) The book spans their entire time there and also provides what happened to the key players years and years later. Dramatic, funny, sad and very, very believable. I first read it years and years ago and I just re-read it about a month ago. Lovely book and nice and long, as well.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is sweet-and sometimes saucy--and has remained one of those books that I go back to every few years. There's just something about the characters that stick with me.

[Erin]

This is already on my "to read" shelf but I received as part of the holiday book exchange that I entered through my friend Kathy Lawson, so now I'll definitely read it!

[Cmrhudy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in 1979, so it is older than Gone With The Wind was the first time I read it, in 1963. At first it seemed like a fun little trip through boarding school and later with several girls who became friends when they were, no surprise, the new girls at a boarding school in CT. I am just a bit younger (5 years) than the author and also the central characters in this book, so I didn’t have to experience the rigid control (just slightly less rigid control) of behavior that they experienced. It was a look back, though, at teenage years with some very interesting reflections. “How hard it is to remember being 15, when you felt so much and knew so little.”
I have read a number of books by BG, and though it is a bit strange to read such an early one after later books, I was struck by how well written it is, and how well developed even minor characters are. Interesting read.

[Adrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who went to boarding school and just enjoyed the heck out of a re-watch of Whit Stilman's Metropolitan, I enjoyed this book very much. Don't know if you'll enjoy it though, you'll need a high tolerance for WASP shenanigans circa 1963, although it is well written with an awareness of how girls were handicapped pre-feminism. The book observes the end of an era that hadn't changed much at all since the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (1920).

I got the feeling that everything in this book really happened, whether it was to people who the author knew intimately or not it all felt real and that's one of the things I loved about it.

[L. Penn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I need to choose fiction more carefully though trying to broaden my scope but this stuff ain't for me. While cute, with characters that could have been taken from most other novels of this type, (boarding school preppy verbosity that relate to the few) nothing different, nothing startling, nor surprising, so I did not manage to get through all of it. By chapter three, The Glee Club Dance, I was bored and went no further. Give me something like 'Kes' on crack, please.

[Ann Boytim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five girls meet during the time they are all attending a prep school in the mid sixties. Times are so different then and rules at this school are so outdated but the old traditions do not sit well with this group of girls. The years go by and they have a reunion and how things have changed in their lives they have blossomed from the shy and sometimes rebellious young girls when they first became friends.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Follow girls through Miss Pratt's prep/finishing/boarding school in the early 1960s on the cusp of women's lib, but confined to a school with lots of rules. Social life consists of shared glee club concerts and dinners with all boys schools, sports, and making your own fun. Who knew debutante activities could have so much drama and hijinks? The final chapter checks in with the girls at their 15th reunion.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book, the characters were compelling, I felt like the characters became close friendsof mine by the end of the book and I didn't want to leave them. Although I didnt relate to the way of life, I enjoyed the dynamics of the friendships between the five as well as their family and friends. I looked forward to picking up the read nightly.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another failed revisit attempt. Is it just me? No, it’s not, because Atonement still holds up. But this one just doesn’t for me. It’s not BAD, per se, but it could be so much better. I think it tried to do too much and focus on too many characters and I just couldn’t care about them. I found myself skimming around the 200 page mark just to be done.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished this book and said WTF. My husband overheard me and said “2 stars???” He was right. While I found the characters interesting, there were just too many people and the storylines too disjointed.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

For starters, I hated the ending. My other main complaint was that there were simply too many characters. Lisa, Jenny, and Muffin I could picture; the others all blended together for me. There should have been a list of characters at the beginning.

[sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

very reminiscent of my mps days

[Rebekah Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the characters so much that I didn't want the book to end. Gorgeous prose, evocative of the era of which it speaks, & quite often hilarious, this is a real treat.

[Danielle Feldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read! Took me longer than I wanted to finish it. I would often confuse the characters.

[Eleanora Kaloyeropoulou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun perspective of an all girls boarding school in the 1960s. I’m definitely the target audience for this book.

[MBenzz · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this book, it wasn't a must-read, impossible-to-put-down kinda story. This is the second novel of Ms. Gutcheon's I've read, (the first being More Than You Know, which is GREAT) and you can tell it's an early effort.

The story focuses on 5 'New Girls' as they're called, who all went to the very prestigious Mrs. Pratt's School for Girls (a prep school) in the early '60s. The first chapter starts with their 15-year reunion, where we learn one of the girls has killed herself...the rest of the book tells us about each one's experience during their three years as a Pratt Girl, and their path to finding friendships with one another.

I thought the storyline jumped around a little too much. I felt like each girl was a bit incomplete, and wanted more information at a time, instead of the scattered pieces we're given. And there were so many secondary characters that I couldn't keep up. I'd come to a name and have to stop and think about whether or not I was already introduced to this person, or if it's another new character. In my opinion, it probably would have been easier to follow if there had been one less main character, 4 'New Girls' as opposed to 5. Also, we never find out why the one girl ended up killing herself years later. That was quite a disappointment.

Overall, it was a decent book. I don't think it's for everyone, there's really no climactic point in the story. It's pretty much just an account of the day-to-day life of prep school girls, and their wealthy upbringings. Though it wasn't my favorite, I'll definitely read more from this author, I've read her later stuff and it's much improved.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this book, but thought I would love it given the topic, time era and enjoying Leeway Cottage. I read it thinking it was the girls’ version of “The Class” which I loved, but it lacked the development of the characters and their lives. The two books were a similar story line – following a group of similar but diverse classmates up to a reunion (The Class /1958 Harvard to their 25th reunion in 1983 – New Girls / 1963 Miss Pratt’s a spoof on Miss Porter’s in Farmington, CT to their 15th reunion in 1978). While both are long established New England facilities the girls seems to be more lackluster in their school rituals and friendship. It seemed they felt more obligated to attend the 15th as Antiques and really didn’t savor the experience they had as classmates or really keep up with each other over the years. The story sort of breezed over each of the girls – Lisa, Muffin, Ann, Jenny and Sally without you really feeling for any one of them and their culture or experiences. Some of the schoolgirl rituals were amusing like smoking, diets, teacher crushes and the hope of being accepted into the school clubs and organizations.

[MrsKrueger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Die grundsätzliche Ausgangssituation von "Ein Käfig voller Mädchen" ist sehr amüsant und unterhaltsam – hauptsächlich wegen der mir eher unbekannten Generation und ihren damaligen Gepflogenheiten -, und im Vergleich dazu sind die weiteren Erlebnisse der Mädchen eher weniger einprägsam und die Story selbst relativ eintönig, vor allem hinsichtlich der weiteren Lebenswege der Freundinnen. Während die Ereignisse aus der Schulzeit mitunter lustig, spannend und teilweise auch erschreckend zugleich sind, habe ich im weiteren Verlauf der Handlung das Interesse etwas verloren und mich durch die Durchschnittlichkeit durch gequält.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, the book club did not like this book. I don't think many people could relate to the characters, or just didn't have any empathy for them. They did seem to be very distinct or memorable. It could just be that we're so far removed from them in time and circumstances. I would get caught up in one story, then it was time to switch to another girl's sub-plot and it just didn't flow well for me.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of four friends and what happens to them during and after high school. It is also the story of a school that is trying to hold onto the traditions of fifty years ago.
This is a classic coming of age story that looks at four girls at a turning point of their lives and a major turning point in America.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is both an eye-opening social commentary and engrossing character study. The prep school attitudes and feminine social norms of the 1960s is an exciting history lesson and the ladies who help tell the story become your best friends for these few pages. Literally could not put this book down - the writing is marvelous.

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this in the library when I was in about the 6th grade and immediately got swept up in these lives I had no concept of; I was a poor kid in a California public school who had never even known about prep schools or the kinds of people that inhabit them. I pick it up every couple of years to re-read it, and it never gets old for me.

[Ginna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this every few years as it was written by one of my late aunt's closest friends and depicts their time at Miss Porter's (Farmington) and their life in Sewickley,PA. Comfort food in book form!!!!