The Pregnancy Project by Gaby Rodriguez

The Pregnancy Project

Gaby's mother was a teen when she had her first child. Gaby was the eighth and last of her children and watched as her mother struggled to support and provide for them without the help of a father. As she watched her sisters and brothers become teen parents, she resolved to not let a pregnancy come between her and her goals. She could not help but watch how friends, family, and society as a whole regard and treat teen parents and she came up with an idea for her senior project.

She shared her plan with only her mother, one sister, her boyfriend, best friend, principal, and assistant superintendent. She was an honors student and would record how everyone saw and treated her when she revealed to them she was pregnant. That's right. She faked a pregnancy. Her co-conspirators would relate to her all they heard and for a few months she experienced how a pregnant teen was treated. Her goal was to show people how their attitudes and comments tore down a teen's self-esteem and how it was impossible to recover from this. 

I highly recommend this book to students to show how they can make a difference and maybe help someone who needs a shoulder to lean on.

My rating for this book:

Wintergirls (2009)

Laurie Halse Anderson has written another YA masterpiece, this time centering on anorexia and cutting. Lia's friend, Cassie, was found dead in a hotel room. Lia had just returned to her father's house after a second stay in a clinic called New Seasons. Her mother, a heart surgeon, did not feel she could properly supervise her daughter and thought that her remarried ex-husband and his wife could do better.

I reach for the steak knife in the nest of spoons. The black handle is war. As I pull it free, the blade slices the air, dividing the kitchen into slivers. There is Jennifer, packing store-bought cookies in a plastic tub for her daughter's class. There is Dad's empty chair, pretending he has no choice about these early meetings. There is the shadow of my mother, who prefers the phone because face-to-face takes too much time and usually ends in screaming.
Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it.

...body found in a motel room, alone...

Someone just ripped off my eyelids.

The pain Lia experienced is intense and excrutiating. She felt ugly, fat, and stupid, and the only control she had was her weight. As her story and weight loss progressed, we are allowed intimate details of the triggers which exasperated her disorder, how she controlled her weight, and how she hid her weight loss from her parents. The only person she felt connected with was her stepsister, Emma.

This book is a must for teens and adults who know someone suffering from eating disorders. In addition to the inner turmoil, readers are given a glimpse of the damage the body suffers from anorexia and bulimia.

My rating for this book: +++++

Nineteen Minutes (2007)

Jodi Picoult doesn't tell the story of a high school shooting massacre from just one point of view -- we get it from the shooter's, the victims', the parents', law enforcement's, lawyer's and DA's. We don't just see the events of one day, we go back to the shooter's first day of kindergarten and follow him and his classmates to the fateful day and through the trial which followed. We get the whole story, dissected and laid out for us so we can feel everyone's emotions.

Chaos was a constellation of students, running out of the school and trampling the injured. A boy holding a handmade sign in an upstairs window that read HELP US. Two girls hugging each other and sobbing. Chaos was blood melting pink on the snow; it was the drip of parents that turned into a stream and then a raging river, screaming out the names of their missing children. Chaos was a TV camera in your face, not enought ambulances, not enough officers, and no plan for how to react when the world as you knew it went to pieces.


Gripping is a word that is frequently used to describe an exciting book. I wish I could think of a word even more dramatic to describe how this book captured my attention, sucked me in, and had me suffer along with all (yes, I mean all) of the characters. I can't help but look around my school and wonder about all the hidden, horrible things that are probably occurring now and how there may be someone who feels as desperate and hopeless as this shooter felt.

High school students and parents of high school students will find this book scarier than anything written by Stephen King.

My rating for this book: +++++

Spanking Shakespeare (2008)

Senior year in high school can be incredibly stressful for some students but few are as nerve-wracking as Shakespeare Shapiro's in this book by Jake Wizner. Shakespeare is very bright, creative, and sensitive. And he suffers embarassment at every turn. My favorite part of the book relates his first experience with marijuana. He forgot that he was going out to dinner with his family and aunt. He made a terrible mistake of asking his younger brother for help getting through the meal without getting in trouble. Oh, sure! The rest of the book has excerpts from his senior memoir which gives us insight into this tortured boy's endless succession of embarassing events.

While I loved Shakespeare's sense of humor and his fantastic creativity, I was a bit uncomfortable with the frequency of episodes of self gratification that peppers this story. In the end, he becomes concerned about a girl in his class who refuses to share information about her life. She finally shares that her mother had recently died and she is struggling to help her father and brother keep together in a very desperate situation. Rather than pity her, he tries to offer his help and tries to persuade her to accept help from others. Wisely, he knows that she should be taking care of herself and not shouldering her father's responsibility.

I would cautiously recommend this book to someone who likes to read about gutsy, creative people. I think a student might be embarassed to know I read this book so I will not admit to anyone that I read this. So, don't ask me about it!

My rating for this book: +++

Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty (2008)

It's interesting, sometimes, to figure out exactly what attracts you to a certain book. In this case, I was intrigued by the term "triple shot betty". When I read the description of the book, I was further drawn in by the fact that it took place in Sonoma, just over the hill from my home! My confession is that I am not a real fan of chick lit, even though I have to admit that once I start reading a book of this genre, I find I like the main character, feel sorry when something bad happens, and celebrate when everything is fixed (if that's the case). In Jody Gehrman's book, Geena is looking forward to a summer where her best friend, Amber, and her cousin, Hope, meet and the three of them enjoy hanging out. Well, you know that if that was all that happened it wouldn't be a very interesting book. Geena is smart and funny and has a totally unique view of the world. I highly recommend this book to girls who enjoy revenge stories.

My rating for this book: +++

Story of a Girl (2007)

What's this? Two blogs in one day? How can this be? Well, I started "Masquerade" but it was checked out before I could finish. So I started "Story of a Girl". Because of our library being closed, I had lots of time to read so I finished both books in one day. Truely, I do work in the library.
Sara Zarr has given us a story of how hard it is to overcome one event in our lives. Deanna was 13 years old when she started having sex with a 17-year old friend of her brother. Her father caught them in the act and pulled her out of Tommy's car. Tommy displayed his maturity by telling everyone about the event and she was labeled a slut, a reputation that was impossible to live down.
Three years later Deanna has not even had a single date, her father still won't look at her, and everyone still considers her a slut and whispers behind her back. She feels that there is nothing she can do to get past this.
"This is the thing: Pacifica is a stupid small town with only one real high school, where everyone knows everyone else's business and the rumors never stop until some other kid is dumb enough to do something that makes a better story. But my story had the honor of holding the top spot for over two years running. I mean, a senior getting caught with his pants down on top of an eighth-grade girl, by the girl's father ("No way! Her father? I'd just kill myself!") was pretty hard to beat."
Deanna is a strong girl who refuses to be beaten down. Even when she takes a job where she comes in daily contact with the source of her problem, she pushes on, determined to show everyone she is better than they realize.
I highly recommend this to girls in school who feel they are marked for life by one event. Deanna's solution will give them hope and maybe an idea on how to change others' views.
My rating for this book: ++++

Twisted (2007)

This book by Laurie Halse Anderson reflects the incredible pressure on teens these days. Tyler has a LOT of pressure from all sides: his father (under a lot of pressure at work and taking it out on his family), he's on parole (for vandalism which he only did to get attention from his peers), his sister (attending his school and getting into a relationship with his best friend), Bethany (his old bully's twin sister AND the daughter of his father's boss, who finally notices he exists), classes (his father made him take as many AP classes as allowed including Calculus). When he is wrongly accused of posted compromising pictures of Bethany on the web (after pulling her out of a party and driving her, her brother, and his friends, all passed out drunk, home), it seems he has felt the load of the last straw. He pulls a gun out of his father's drawer, loads it, and puts the muzzle in his mouth. Does he pull the trigger?

My rating for this book: +++