Young Adult Book Reviews

Genre:  Nonfiction

# of Pages:  215

RAC Book:  Yes

Gaby Rodriguez comes from a family with many teen pregnancies.  Her mother and all of her older sisters were teen moms and so far none of her siblings have made it into their early twenties without becoming parents.  Because of her family history, Gaby has been told her entire life that she will become another teen pregnancy statistic.  She works really hard in school and hopes to be a social worker one day.  For her senior project she decides to fake a pregnancy and then monitor all the comments, treatment, etc. that she receives due to everyone believing she is yet another pregnant teen in her small town.  She tells as few people as she can, even her boyfriend’s parents don’t know she’s not really pregnant.  Despite her choice to pursue this project throughout most of her senior year, she is surprised and hurt by some of the comments directed toward her.  By the end of the project she has many observations and revelations concerning how our society treats pregnant teens and how that treatment then affects their behavior.

This book asks you to think about the various ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural stereotypes surrounding teen pregnancy.  It is crazy to imagine a teen undergoing this project for months without getting fed up and just admitting the truth.  Her experience will resonate with many young girls, especially ones who have had obstacles in their young lives and have faced unwanted opinions because of it.  This is a very interesting read, but might be a difficult sell for teen boys.