A girl mercifully falls through the gym floor at a high school dance. A late-life baby devours her father and home before starting on her mother. A zoo employee bonds with a portrait-painting elephant named Sarai. Composed of forty-four stories fewer than 2,000 words apiece, the universally-female protagonists of Girl Power each navigate a portion of the labyrinthine trail from maidenhood through motherhood and into matronhood while negotiating the many complexities of being female in the contemporary era. Thirty-eight of the included stories were originally published in journals such as Word Riot, Monkeybicycle, The Citron Review, NANO Fiction, and elsewhere. -- Provided by publisher.