Female subjectivity is an important theme throughout Acker's novel Blood and Guts in High School. The subjectivity that Janey, the protagonist, observes and experiences, consciously and unconsciously, plays an important role in how she identifies and characterizes others around her. Janey is introduced in the novel as a 10-year-old girl and the reader is allowed to follow her until her death at 14. Thus, the reader sees how her impressionable young mind becomes corrupted over time and how these experiences and observations not only steal her innocent youth but ultimately control her. Janey's happiness and existence depend on her relationships with men. It is important to first note that Janey's mother died when she was only one year old. So, throughout the novel, Janey has no strong mother figure in her life. Janey and her father, Johnny, have an incestuous relationship. Besides their strange sexual relationship, it is notable that Janey identifies her father as a brother, a sister, money, entertainment and, finally, her father. From the beginning of his life...