Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Gabi, A Girl in Pieces

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero

10 reviews

amandalorianxo's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is what I expected and wanted from Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter that I didn’t get. Gabi is written with an authentic voice of a teenager who is juggling senior year in California with a lot of family & friends baggage. I laughed & cried. Questioning so much it was like I was seeing me in these pages. Gabi is being told that a good Mexican girl has a checklist but despite being the only (& oldest) daughter in the family yet her younger brother isn’t given those same rules. Yet Gabi has dreams of her own that don’t involve staying with an overworked, controlling mother. Backlist gems from nearly ten years ago, this didn’t feel outdated at all. Ironically, I was graduating college in 2014 but even 21 year old Amanda would have loved this as much as 31 year old me does today.

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luna_bear's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

tree_star's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective sad

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

A fun and poignant YA read about a girl navigating high school, love, family and poetry. A combo I can't resist. This is pretty standard YA fare, but I loved it all the same. Gabi is hard not to like and I found myself laughing and crying with her in turns, and even cheering her on when...maybe...I shouldn't have.
But that's the point: None of us are perfect but we all deserve to take up space just as we are.

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thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

told in the format of a journal interspersed w/ poems and even a zine, gabi, a girl in pieces reads like a YA classic w/ its story of identity, family, friendship, relationships, and grapples w/ the world.

the main character gabi is painfully, frighteningly relatable w/ her sturggles w/ body image, eating, complicated relationship w/ family, and her narrative voice is wry and at times hilarious. it's satisfying to see her grow and evolve thruout the novel, gradually thinking critically abt the world around her and the way girls are treated in her cultural context, and eventually speaking up and making her voice heard.

there's a lot going on in this short book, w/ quintero tackling numerous topics and issues, and tho it can feel a lil overwhelming at times, it's also realistic. there's addiction, teen pregnancy, rape culture, coming (and getting kicked) out, body image, internalized misogyny, and cultural pressure, to name a few. quintero approaches them all w/ equal parts realism and empathy. furthermore, the poems - esp those abt gabi's family - can be particularly touching, while the zine poems are technically great yet incisive.

i only wish things didnt peter out for cindy and sebastian towards the end, w/ gabi seeming hyperfocused in her own head. also i cant help but be a lil confused as to why many boys suddenly flock to gabi when nothing abt her has rly changed internally or externally. the narrative can also get repetitive at times, w/ some things mentioned or happening over and over, blurring many of the events tgt into one indistinct blob. the end couldve been less abrupt too.

while this novel contains serious themes and topics, it addresses and explores them w/ empathetic realism thru a humorous and wry narrative voice; an inevitable YA classic.

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