Where the Girls Were

Today we’re reviewing the book, WHERE THE GIRLS WERE by Kate Schatz. This book is set in 1968 San Francisco. Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Phillips, whose nickname is Baker, is a high school senior. She’s set to be her school’s valedictorian, she plans to go to Stanford for college and become a famous journalist, and probably live in Paris along the way. But then, her older and more free-wheeling cousin, Mae, invites her to a party where she indulges in what it would feel like to be the not-so–perfect daughter and she falls into a passionate, secret relationship with a young hippie, Wiley.This book takes us to a very turbulent year in the United States, 1968, and we live through it through Baker’s eyes and the upheavals she is personally facing. 1968 was the year of the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and intense civil unrest. 1968 saw major political shifts, including LBJ's decision not to run for reelection, violent protests at the Democratic National Convention.1968 is also known as the beginning of a new era of sexual freedom, though it was certainly a contentious concept. The birth control pill had been approved in 1960 and IUDs in 1968, allowing women to separate sex from childbearing and facilitating the "sexual revolution".However, access to contraceptives for single women remained restricted in many areas and most doctors required parental consent for unmarried women under 21 to receive birth control. Baker certainly isn’t familiar with any sort of birth control. So, when she and Wiley begin having sex, she inevitably becomes pregnant. When Baker does become pregnant that it is entirely her problem to solve. Wiley already moved on to other women and is off to Mexico to evade the Vietnam draft and live the surfer’s life. At one point, Baker says, “If men could get pregnant, I bet it would be different.”