Prologue

At the start of the 1950s, in the suburbs of Elizabeth, N.J., a nearly teenage Judy Blume found herself at odds with the rhythms of her body.

She hadn’t inherited her Aunt Gert’s large breasts.

And she hadn’t yet started her period.

She had discovered the joys of self-stimulation, but she was suffering from a lack of privacy.

There were consolations along the way. Her friends had bigger chests than hers, sure, but they were kind and honest, and all just as keen as she was to discuss things like masturbation, even if they hadn’t learned the word yet. And her monthly bleeds did eventually come. But more on that later.

Chapter 1

In the courtyard café of Books & Books, a long-standing indie shop in Miami, a bespectacled man takes notice as I scrawl some last-minute thoughts in my notebook. “Are you writing the next great American novel?
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