Three teen girls, all struggling with abusive men, support their classmates by running an after-school sex-ed class in the keen and sharply truthful How Girls Are Made by Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species).
Eighteen-year-old overachiever Fallon thinks sex ed should better prepare girls "for the reality of a penis" and launches a secret class with fellow "pretty-white-straight" seniors Shelby and Jobie. Shelby is a locally famous fighter whose new boyfriend, Baxter, showers her with admiration. When his love rapidly turns to negativity, Shelby begins believing she's "gross," "disgusting," and a "shitty girl." Jobie, hungry for online validation, joins a forum in hopes of making the $75,000 she needs to surgically achieve a "heartbreakingly gorgeous" face. She accepts requests for foot pictures and a video of her eating cottage cheese, but sharing nudes would make money faster. Meanwhile, Fallon deals with a brutally upsetting DM on her own: "my stepbrother rapes me every night. Please help."
McGinnis's pitch-perfect YA novel characters demystify sexuality for their peers and exemplify the nefarious tools of abusers through their blazingly candid alternating first-person POVs. Shelby, fluent in physical violence, evinces the difficulty of recognizing emotional manipulation. Jobie shows how easily it is to be subsumed by social media's dark side. Fallon flounders trying to fill the spaces where appropriate sex education and victim services should be. McGinnis peppers in riotous humor and discussions of outrageous misinformation ("No, Mountain Dew is not a spermicide") while hinting at a looming tragedy in this stellar portrait of what female teens endure. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer