Charity Girl

Charity Girl
Michael Lowenthal
4 out of 5

Too heavy on "Girl finds herself in the cruel world" and not enough history. During WWI our government detained women who either had an STD or "who was the type that would". These women were rounded up and placed in detention centers to keep them away from soldiers. Many of the women were called "charity girls", young women that would hang out in dance halls. They weren't necessarily prostitutes, just girls looking for fun. Lowenthal tells the story through 17 year old Frieda Mintz, who worked in a department store as a wrapper. She meets an army private, who has his own family secrets, and after a brief encounter she discovers that she has been tainted. Of course this private gives her name to the "Committee on Prevention of Social Evils Surrounding Military Camps", which I'm not sure is a real name because it sounds so ridiculous, but Frieda is detained and subjected to humiliation which leads to the oh so redundant coming of age drama. To me this book would have been so much better if it delved deeper into the history of this detainment and less on "girl meets big bad world".