Moving, funny and intensely affecting, WHAT GIRLS LEARN is a novel of love and loss and the demons teenagers must confront in order to grow up. At its centre are two sisters, Tilden - bookish and wise beyond her years - and Elizabeth, blonde, popular - an emotional chameleon. Both long to know more about their beautiful flighty mother who is part rule-making tyrant, part hopeless romantic. A woman whose complex relationships with men remain a mystery. Or at least they did...'WHAT GIRLS LEARN is a book I have longed for my whole life. Karin Cook reveals the awful secrets of girlhood in exhilarating, totally original prose. She has an ear - for language, for truth, for dailiness, for sorrow - like no other contemporary writer I know. - STEPHANIE GRANT, author of THE PASSION OF ALICE.