You write about different types of girls with such accuracy, it makes me wonder what you were like at school? Were you a watcher or did you belong to a particular set?

I definitely felt like an observer. But I’m also one of five girls and I think being from such a big family informed me. I’m the oldest and I have four younger sisters but we were all adolescents at the same time and we are very close in age. So even if I didn’t experience something, one of them did. I had all kinds of different lenses on being a girl.

Evie is a very lonely, only child, with divorced parents. Did you find it hard to write such a character when your own upbringing was so different?

I think it was actually surprising to me how easily accessible those feelings were for me during adolescence. What I remember most about it was how every feeling was so extreme and all-encompassing. And everything felt black and white. Everything was the most wonderful thing or the most terrible thing. Which is kind of an exhausting way to look at the world. It takes a lot of energy to sustain.

Did you feel intimidated by other girls when you were younger? I think I was more intimidated by girls than boys.

Yes! Especially older girls. They seemed capable in ways that I wasn’t. Or they seemed to be models for this life that you could have, which is what makes older girls so magnetic. It was a dynamic that I wanted to write about. It’s kind of a love story, or an alternative love story that you have at that age.

I remember becoming obsessed with my babysitter, who was probably 17 when I was 10. I thought she was the coolest person I’d ever known and I wanted to dress like her and just be her. She totally fascinated me.

As soon as you said that I remembered my babysitter too! I’d forgotten about her. She had this T-shirt and all I wanted to do was wear her T-shirt. And there was nothing special about it except that it was hers [laughs]. It’s a really funny age. I don’t know if men and boys have that same feeling. I don’t know why. It feels very specific to being a young girl.