pregnancy

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

| Tasha

allegedly-by-tiffany-d-jackson

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

Mary has served six years for killing a baby when she was nine years old. Now she is living in a group home with other teen girls, including ones who want to hurt her. Mary doesn’t talk much and didn’t speak for months after the baby’s death. Now though, Mary has something to speak up for and fight for. She has an older boyfriend who works at the nursing home where Mary is assigned. She also has their unborn child. Mary is smart and loves to read. She sets her mind on going to college and completing SATs. However, there are a lot of hurdles and barriers in her way from the system itself to just getting an ID. As Mary starts to fight back she will have to take on her mother, the person whose testimony got her locked up in the first place.

This is one incredible debut novel. It takes a dark and unflinching look at how our society treats young offenders and the bleak lives that are left to them. It also speaks to the horror of a baby being killed and the effect that race, where a black girl is accused of killing a white baby, has on the system. The writing is outstanding, allowing the desperation to seep into the pages and the darkness to simply stand, stark and true.

Mary is an amazing protagonist. Readers will relate to her as her intelligence shines on the page despite the grime surrounding her. As she begins to build hope and a new life around herself, readers will feel their own hopes soar and warmth creep in. Mary though is not a simple character, a girl wronged. She is her own person, messing up in her own ways and speaking her own truth.

Complex and riveting, this debut novel is one that is dazzling, deep and dark. Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from e-galley received from Edelweiss and Katherine Tegen Books.

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

| Tasha

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

The author of Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty returns with a powerful verse novel. Addie is one of the stars of her Catholic high school’s cross country team and dating a popular boy in a band. Then after having unprotected sex, Addie ends up pregnant and decides to have an abortion. After that everything changes as Addie keeps her pregnancy and decision secret from everyone except her parents and her boyfriend. Addie tries to keep on running, but she has lost her drive to excel at it. She quits the team but doesn’t tell anyone about her decision. Spending time in a coffee shop away from school, she runs into Juliana, an old friend who is having her own troubles.

Heppermann writes superb poetry. I enjoyed the fact that she incorporates the title of the each poem right into the poem itself or makes the title turn the poem a new direction for the reader. She uses each word in the same way, creating tightly crafted verse that is distinct for its powerful message. Addie’s own voice in these poems is consistent, aching at times with pain and defiant as hell in others. It is the voice of a teenager struggling with  huge decisions and their repercussions as they lead her to really be true to herself.

Throughout the book, the Virgin Mary is used as a symbol but also as a figure of worship. She is seen as intensely human as well as a religious figure. It is the poems about her that really shine in this novel, each one stunningly fierce and unrepentant. Religion is part of Addie’s life and a large part of the novel. Heppermann demonstrates in her poetry how one’s faith is complex and personal and can get one through dark times.

A great verse novel that takes on big topics like pregnancy, abortion and what happens afterwards. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Edelweiss and Greenwillow.

Review: This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki

| Tasha

this one summer

This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

Rose goes to Awago Beach every summer with her parents, but this summer things don’t feel quite the same.  Rose’s friend Windy is also there and the two of them hang out together just like every other summer.  But Rose’s parents are always arguing and her mother won’t go swimming with them at all.  Rose and Windy find their own way to escape the fighting, they rent horror movies from the local shop.  While they are there picking out and returning their movies, they watch a summer of teenage drama unfold in front of them.  This is a summer unlike any others, one where secrets are hidden and revealed and where sorrow mixes with the summer sun.

Done by the pair that did Skim, this is an amazing graphic novel for teens.  It deals with that fragile moment in life where children are becoming teens and everything around them is changing.  These two girls are suspended in that time during the summer, learning about themselves, about their parents and witnessing events around them in a new way.  The use of a summer vacation to capture that moment in time is superb.  Yet this book is not a treatise on the wonder of childhood at all.  It deals with deeper issues, darker ones, ones that the two girls are not ready to handle yet.  And that’s what makes it all the more wondrous as a book.

The art in the book is phenomenal.  The two girls are different physically, one a little stouter than the other and both are real girls expressing real emotions.  And the larger of the two girls is not the shy, meek one.  She has a wonderful sassiness to her, an open grin, and rocks a bikini.  Hoorah!  The art captures summer days, the beach, what a face of sorrow looks like and how it tears into ones entire physique.  Done in blue and white, the images are detailed and realistic.

A glimpse of one summer and what happens during it, this book is about capturing a moment in time, one that is filled with depth, despair and desire.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from digital copy received from

Review: Holding on to Zoe by George Ella Lyon

| Tasha

holding on to zoe

Holding on to Zoe by George Ella Lyon

16-year-old Jules left home and started working at a Toyota factory once her baby Zoe was born.  The facility offered free baby care and a small apartment for them to live in together.  But her best friend and mother don’t seem to be accepting Zoe at all.  It’s almost as if they’d be happy to Jules just forgot about her baby altogether.  But Jules is determined to be a good mother to this perfect little baby.  It means that she has to juggle a lot of responsibilities and even more when she heads back to high school.  When she is forced to leave Toyota and return to living with her mother, things reach a crisis.  Throughout the book readers will piece together what is true in Jules’ life and what is not.  This is a credible and disturbing book about teen pregnancy and mental illness.

In reading others’ reviews of this book, I found that many had responded negatively to the book.  It is a unique mixture of teen pregnancy book in the beginning and mental illness in the end.  The mental illness portion comes slowly and readers will see tentacles of it early in the book if they look for them.  Jules’ pregnancy is handled honestly with both the baby’s father and Jules’ mother responding negatively to the news.  There is a beautiful sensitivity to the entire work that makes it poignant.

Jules is a protagonist with real issues.  As she struggles, the characters around her become all the more human.  Her mother moves from being a rather shadowy figure of doubt to someone who cares deeply and is unable to show her emotions.  Jules’ best friend Reba also shows her true colors as Jules struggles on.  Reba refuses to play along with Jules insisting that she see the truth. 

This book is sensitive, real and tragic.  It is an issue book that changes issues as the story continues, something that is unique and fascinating.  Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Farrar Straus Giroux.

Review: Small Damages by Beth Kephart

| Tasha

small damages

Small Damages by Beth Kephart

Kenzie is not the sort of teen who gets pregnant.  She has college plans, a boyfriend who is headed to Yale, but she took risks.  Earlier in the year, she lost her beloved father and now her mother just wants to move on.  Her mother wants to do the same with the pregnancy.  Kenzie decides to keep the baby and her mother creates a plan to keep the pregnancy a secret: she sends Kenzie off to Spain for the summer.  Staying with a friend of her mother, Kenzie is taken under the wing of Estela, a small, fierce woman who cooks for the ranch where they raise bulls for bullfighting.  Estela guides Kenzie through learning to cook, making sure that she also takes care of herself and the baby.  Kenzie meets the couple who will adopt her baby and also a young man who works on the ranch with the animals.  She slowly comes out of her shell, building relationships with those around her.  This book is an homage to Spain, an exploration of choice, and a delight of a read.

As always, Kephart writes with the voice of a poet.  Her language is especially effective here as she recreates Spain for the reader with all of its colors, scents and sounds.  There is a wonderful space to the novel, a quietness that is profound and amazing.  It too speaks of a foreign country, of being cared for by another generation, and of having time to contemplate and decide.  This book is also complex.  Decisions are made and reconsidered, lives are changed, and there is no surety to the final decision until the last page is turned.  It is a compelling dance between quiet desperation, beauty and real family and belonging. 

This is a book that you want to curl up and read and read as long as your eyes will let you.  It is a trip to Spain filled with all of the warmth, personality and impressive history of that land.  The play of the modern American teen against that timeless background is pure genius, giving a story that could have been straight forward a real depth and power.

This is an exceptional teen novel that will also be enjoyed by adult readers as a crossover title.  It is elegantly written and gloriously beautiful.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Philomel Books.

Review: Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

| Tasha

pregnant pause

Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

Released September 19, 2011.

Eleanor has always made the worst decisions but this one may top them all.  She’s now pregnant and married to her boyfriend.  Oh, and stuck in a cabin, at a weight-loss camp, with her in-laws who definitely don’t approve of her.  Her parents have left her to return to Kenya and their missionary work with AIDS infants.  Everyone wants Eleanor’s baby.  Her older sister who has been struggling with infertility wants the baby.  Her in-laws who lost a child in infancy want it too.  But Eleanor and her husband are the only ones who can decide what they are going to do.  As Eleanor works at the camp with the children, she learns that she has a real skill with kids.  And of course, she does it in her own way.  Now she just has to figure how to handle her marriage, pregnancy, and a baby.

Nolan’s writing is exquisite.  She has created a protagonist in Eleanor who is definitely a hero, but also challenges the reader with her anger, her biting wit, and her choices.  Eleanor reads as a real person, with self-doubts and real emotions that originate naturally from the story line.  Nolan writes with a confidence and skill here, showing that there is life beyond pregnancy but it is filled with difficult choices and unexpected events.

A strong and riveting look at teen pregnancy, this book reaches far beyond a single issue and straight to the heart of a compelling character.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group.

Also reviewed by:

Jumping Off Swings

| Tasha

Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles

When Ellie gets pregnant, it changes her life and that of three of her friends and classmates.  Coming from an outwardly perfect but very distant family, Ellie tries to find comfort and love by having sexual relationships with boys.  Josh, finding Ellie willing, loses his virginity to her and then ignores her.  When Ellie discovers she is pregnant, she turns to her best friend Corinne for advice.  Caleb, a classmate and friend of Josh’s, is furious about the way Ellie has been treated.  The four lives of these teens are now entwined in a larger way, giving readers a chance to see how they cope with an overwhelming situation and series of choices.

Knowles, author of Letters from a Dead Girl, has created a novel filled with sensitivity and grace.  Her deep exploration of the impact of an unexpected pregnancy offers insight into not only this issue but any momentous occurrence in the lives of teens.  The inner strength it takes to deal with such situations is a large focus of the novel.  Knowles’ writing is easy to read and keeps itself simple while exploring such complex subjects.

The various choices of a pregnant teen are shown not only through Ellie but through the families of all of the characters.  There are sisters who had abortions, parents who got married because of a pregnancy, and the option of adoption.  The beauty of the novel is that there is no judgment about any of the decisions made.  They simply are.

Knowles also excels at creating four distinct types of families for the teens.  Ellie’s distant aloof family, Josh’s dysfunctional one, Corinne’s loving parents, and Caleb’s nearly-perfect but embarrassing single mother.  Again, Knowles offers a banquet of diversity without judgment.

Highly recommended, this novel is deep, moving and lovely.  Appropriate for teens 14-18.

Reviewed from ARC gotten at ALA.

Also reviewed on Sharon Loves Books and Cats, Kate’s Book Blog, and The Unnamed Forest.  You can check out Jo Knowles’ blog too!