What experiences constitute ‘girlhood’? What personal and social pathways are available to girls in contemporary American fiction? These questions lie at the heart of this talk, which will explore how emancipatory new representations of girlhood have emerged in novels published between 1990-2020, in response to the social and cultural transformations that have been catalysed by the girl-centric agendas of contemporary feminism. This talk will thus question how contemporary fiction asks readers to view girlhood anew by reimagining the personal, narrative, and social possibilities of American girlhood.