The Girls Who Grew Big

The Girls Who Grew Big is told through three different perspectives. Simone is the veteran “teen mom”. She has 5 year old twins and is everyone’s rock. She the one everyone else goes to with questions or concerns about their own pregnancy or children. Emory has a baby boy as a result of a pregnancy that she planned. The father of her baby is Simone’s younger brother, Jayden. She is a senior in high school with dreams of college and getting out of Padua Beach. Adela is sent to live with her grandmother in Padua Beach after telling her parents that she’s pregnant. She has dreams of becoming an Olympic swimmer and plans to give her baby up for adoption. The story is organized according to the three trimesters of her pregnancy.The Girls have been abandoned by their families and shunned by their community but they have found support, friendship and family in each other. They are living with the consequences of their actions, and are the only ones held to that standard. The fathers of these children are not being held to the same standard. The Girls are growing big in more ways than one throughout this story; the character arcs are just awesome.I read this author’s debut and was very impressed with how well she could write at such a young age, and even more impressed with her nuanced perspective of the world. I knew I would be on the lookout for her next book. Her writing has only gotten better and her perspective even more thoughtful. This story will resonate with anyone that has ever eaten sand in their life; anyone that has chosen to do what is right for them instead of what is expected of them. Highly recommend this one.

Found family at its finest. At its strongest. This is beautiful story about the resilience young women can have when faced with unfathomable odds. A reality for so many in our society. I appreciate the struggles, the decisions, and the story for as raw as it is.

Every small town has 'those people'- ones that are the subject of the eye and wide birth from the 'normal' good citizens. In Padua Beach, Florida one of the groups subject to scorn and gossip are a cluster of girls who gravitated towards one another when they became teenage mothers. With little to no support system they've become each others. Stars help you be seen getting too close to any of them. That sort of behavior's catching, you know.Teenage pregnancy is a topic that is exhausted. What more is there to know between the side story of many hard working parents, reality shows, and of course what you know since you see it all the time? If your first reaction to hearing the plot of this book was: yadda yadda hard life, family rejection, empowerment let me be the first to say you're not entirely wrong but you're completely off the mark.Yes these girls are in complicated situations when it comes to family, housing, resources, and other relationships. Yes, it touches on squashed ambitions. Yes, these girls find strength in one another. Yes, it is a coming of age story where many of the girls start to grow into their own skin. Yes, these girls love their children. The way having someone you're responsible for is in your life and heart is undeniably a core concept. “The Girls Who Grew Big” is so much more than all these things.First and foremost it is a direct slap across the face of all the assumptions you might have about the experience. Forget the town gossip. Forget the wishy washy everything turns out rainbows and kittens or horrific tragedy of lost potential. Not a single girl's story fits into whatever neat little narrative you've constructed. Adela has been cast aside by her parents, but they have not financially abandoned her and she has her Noni at her back.Emory's son was at least in part her choice. She had only a fleeting attachment to his father, but she always wanted to be a mother. Her grandparents that raised her are less than pleased to say the least about the situation. Still, they have kept a roof over her head so far. Even though they're not together, he is all to willing to marry her and genuinely wants to be fully involved with their son's life.His sister, Simone, is the 'matron' of the group at 21. The truck that doubles as her home becomes the focal monument in many gatherings. Her twins' father does his bare minimum. No one looks too hard at the fact he was a year older than she is now when she became a teenage mother. She also has to stand aside and watch how she was cast out and erased from her parents mind after telling them about the twins while they still see their son as their jewel even after his own son was born in his teenage years out of wedlock.This book goes beyond these dramas and looks at the broader elements of life that they're facing. Adela is mourning the loss of her previous plan to become an Olympic swimmer. She's desperate for acceptance and love, having resorted to creating many lies just to be included for once. Little does she know that could get her into even more trouble.Emory absolutely refuses to let her son get in her dreams of becoming a biologist. She will fight the school's attempt to remove her for bringing her son to class or to ship herself off to some second rate institution and even her friends insistence that there's no way she can handle college. Meanwhile she nurses an infatuation with this 'connection' she feels to Adela, her new 'best friend'. All the while she's juggling her kinship with Simone to her relationship with her brother.Simone is fighting the strain of mothering two and an whole group of girls. She wants a future for herself. The problem is, she's not sure what that vision is now. She feels stretched out by everyone, everything, in this place where she was lived but could never feel like home.The layers don't stop there. As they interact with the land and society a much broader picture of the area comes into view. You see the classism and racism. You see only a handful of the things young girls are subjected to and how limited their options are in various areas of life. The reader also gets what someone in a northern tourist town can say is an incredibly on point look at existing on a map only for those who visit to indulge. Those who often bring with them more than your usual casual judgment and self importance and leave with very little concern what has remained in their wake.While there is more, I cannot end the review without highlighting one final strength. Most books that tote 'found family' as an element have majority cozy vibes. Someone finally finds a group that understands them. Sure, there might be one hold out, but when they bond over something suddenly everyone is a magical support network. That's thrown out in this as well. This could be one of the most realistic depictions of what real found family often looks like—just as messy as any real family. You have to work at it.You won't always get along with everyone...

Loved it !! Amazing writing. Already recommended it to my girl friends. I thought it was a book on body image issues but ended up with so much more

I didn’t like this book at first. There were no characters to like and some that were positively hateful. The group of girls at the center of the story were silly teens who had gotten pregnant for all the wrong and short-sighted reasons that teen girls do. Their families, especially the fathers and grandfathers, were appalling, kicking the girls out of their homes. Their paramours weren’t much better. The girls hung together because there was no one else to rely on. So, who to like or side with?But all this is what made this important. These girls were part of a tiny rural town in Florida where everyone knew everyone else. Where everyone was fairly poor, went to church and judged others with their so-called Christian values. Pregnant teens clearly had broken the rules. At the beginning they were mostly resigned to their fate.Over the course of the story, they began to see that they needed to not accept that fate, if only to give their children a better life. This finally gave me people to like and respect on a number of different levels.Along with the basic challenges these girls face, there are also issues of race, homosexuality, abuse, and others at play. In all, it is a close look at a world I know exists, but the details of which I had little appreciation of. An important book for those of us who live in a very different world.