Summary

The last museum Nina’s mother takes her to is a Museum of Torture. There she sees many exhibits of devices designed to torture and punish women. One device “was used to punish women who had sex with Satan” and “who allowed themselves to miscarry” (156). Nina’s mother explains that “as long as there have been women, […] there have been ways to punish them for being women” (156).

A break narrative story introduces a girl who lives in a nest and has a beak instead of lips. The other girls with pretty mouths call her “Resting Bitch Face” and the girl’s parents are always after her to clean up her messy nest as if tidying it up could make it normal. The girl lines her nest with cutouts from magazines of pretty girls with pretty mouths and pulls out the...