This one is a coming-of-age classic from Brazil surrounding the narrator-protagonist Maria Augusta, called Gusta, and her friends Maria José and Maria Glória. First published in 1939 the first-person narrative was quite ahead of its time showing the girl who grows up in the care of a convent boarding school and after her return home to her family abandons step by step her timidity as well as the limitations that religion and society impose on women of her time. Unlike many of her peers she doesn’t marry young, but she convinces her father to allow her to return to Fortaleza where she went to school and still has friends to learn a profession. Before long she is a fully trained typist with a job… and free to discover the world and the ways of men.

To learn more about this intriguing Brazilian novel click here to read the long review on my main book blog Edith’s Miscellany!