When her mother dies in an accident and her father increasingly turns to the pub, Kate leaves her Irish hometown with her self-assured and audacious friend Baba. However, life at the Catholic boarding school proves to be bleak and desolate, and soon the girls seek scandal. They are expelled from school and eventually find themselves in Dublin. Kate risks losing herself in a relationship with an older man, and Baba's happiness remains elusive. "The Fifteen-Year-Olds" is the explosive beginning of the trilogy about the two friends - a timeless novel about the coming-of-age of two unequal girls who resist the rigid constraints of their surroundings. "One of the most famous and notorious, most-read and influential Irish novels of the 20th century.".