Elizabeth Ellen’s dazzling and darkly funny novel, American Thighs, follows Tatum Grant, a former child actor who steals her daughter’s identity to start her life over as a high school cheerleader. Tatum’s troubled upbringing is the catalyst for her move from Hollywood to Elkhart, Indiana, a town with painful ties to Tatum’s past. Written in interview style, American Thighs takes wild leaps though the inner lives of high school students and the flawed people expected to guide them into adulthood. Part high school drama, part cultural critique, and part high-speed chase, American Thighs explores the ways young women are expected to consent to their sexualization in a world that also wants to control their every move.
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