The secret of Paula Danziger's success as a writer is that she had the gift of seeing the world through a teenager's eyes. Drawing from her own unhappy childhood, Paula Danziger wrote about the difficulties of growing up. She wrote about families that do not function well, like her own did not, about divorce, and about kids with low self-esteem. And just as she used humor to help her through her own unhappy childhood, the character in her stories like Marcy in The Cat Ate My Gymsuit use humor to help them through the difficulties life has to offer.