The So-Called Girls is the novel that brought Peyami Safa his first literary fame. Set during the gloomy days of the Armistice period, when various regions of Anatolia were occupied by Allied forces, the story begins with Mebrure, a young girl who comes to Istanbul to search for her father, who went missing during the Greek attacks. In her quest, she enters the corrupt and degenerate lives of Istanbul's high society, a world depicted as even more destructive than the war itself.

Caught between the desperation of loneliness and the moral collapse of her surroundings, Mebrure witnesses the tragic lives of the "so-called girls" tumbling from one abyss to another. In this environment dominated by distorted relationships, lies, and hedonism, the characters remain indifferent to the war and the suffering of the nation, trampling upon all cherished values. Widely read and loved since the early years of the Republic, this critique of social corruption has also been adapted into film multiple times.