When she goes to school she throws herself wholeheartedly into her studies and is very proud when she receives praises and rewards for her academic achievements. A family of devout Catholics, the de Beauvoir household was certainly a strict one, I guess it's easy to say that where today's young learn about things they shouldn't from the internet and so forth, back then books made a huge difference in ones self-discovering and learning about life, her mother would reiterate there are books for you and there are books for us, and was constantly keeping an eye on what she was reading.

I loved those evenings when, after dinner, I would set out alone on the Metro and travel right to the other side of Paris, near Les Buttes Chaumont, which smelled of damp and greenery.However, this has shown me just how important it is to be consciously decisive about making time for new aspects of my routine.

I was reading about a mermaid who was dying by the sad sea waves; for the love of a handsome prince, she had renounced her immortal soul, and was being changed into sea-foam. Especially because it sets out clearly enough the development of a woman's consciousness in an oppressive bourgeois environment, and the ways in which this woman learns to avoid conflicts and to live under pressures that she did not recognize as such.

Beyond the thoughts it sparks, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers more insight into Beauvoir as a woman, who felt insecure and dull in comparison with her school friend Zaza.