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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
I am mentally kicking myself for not picking up Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces sooner. This contemporary features one of the most genuine voices I’ve come across, handling difficult issues with honesty and care, with representation that spoke directly to this Latina reader. Gabi Hernandez is many things. Best friend. Daughter. Sister. Fat girl. Mexican-American. In her senior year of high school, Gabi is trying to juggle all her different identities while simultaneously not disappointing her mother and not letting her father’s meth addiction take her whole family down with him. Told in diary entries, Quintero’s novel feels intimate and personal. Gabi feels fully-fleshed out; she’s candid, self-depreciating, and had me laughing out loud on several occasions. So many of these characters felt familiar from the eccentric tía to the judgmental mother. The novel addresses teen pregnancy, homophobia, being the child of an addict, and gender roles in the Latinx community. I loved that Gabi found a creative outlet in her poetry and found it really rewarding to see how her poetry matures over the course of the novel. Gabi, a Girl in Pieces is the kind of novel I wish I had as a teen as several of Gabi’s hopes and fears felt like my own. TW: homophobia, fatphobia, slut shaming, rape, and drug use.
This was a really cool little book. I found the narrator to be realistic and interesting, especially in her aspirations to writing and zine making. However, the book was possibly too ambitious in the number of topics it tried to cover: Teen pregnancy, drugs & addiction, body image & overeating (bingeing), rape. A lot of the take-aways and messages kind of got lost.
Recommended for: High school, Grades 9-12.
Red Flags: Teen pregnancy, drugs & addiction, body image & overeating (bingeing), death, & rape.
Read a likes: Kids who liked this book might also try The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, both because of the graphic novel/ novel connection and because it had similar subjects.
Recommended for: High school, Grades 9-12.
Red Flags: Teen pregnancy, drugs & addiction, body image & overeating (bingeing), death, & rape.
Read a likes: Kids who liked this book might also try The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, both because of the graphic novel/ novel connection and because it had similar subjects.
Mexican-American high school senior Gabi tells her story of senior year in a journal, which includes drawings from her zine, and poems she writes as she develops her skills in a poetry writing class. She suffers from low self-confidence, in both her ethnicity (being a light-skinned Latina) and her body issues (overweight). She also has issues at home--her father is a meth addict and his story isn't so great--and her mom is clingy and doesn't want her to leave home for college, which is Gabi's dream. And of course there is drama with her friends, from teen pregnancies to sexual identity, as well as Gabi's budding romantic relationships with a couple of guys. Gabi is a funny, nervous, charming, marvelous character. Her poems are fun to read, especially to see how her voice grows throughout the year. The journal is peppered with Spanish phrases, most explained loosely in context, so there's a great Latino flavor to the story, grounding it in its cultural setting. Content and language are high school, not middle school-appropriate. my only negative is that the cover is really weird--maybe if the color choicse were different, I might have liked it better. I understand the metaphor of Gabi feeling like she's "in pieces" as illustrated by the collage from her zine, but it's really an offputting image for me. I think only a few teens will pick this up because of the cover, which is a shame.
This book has been hiding on my to-read list for a while. But in an effort to read more books by people of color this year , I finally took out Gabi, Girl in Pieces from Libby.
A couple tips before I start the review for anyone getting ready to read this:
It really adds to the book if you pause and read the poems that were mentioned by Gabi that weren’t printed in the book. Second, you don’t need to know any Spanish for this book to be good. I’m sure it would add, but anything that is in Spanish is translated in the next sentence.
This a coming of age story about Gabi during her senior year of high school. Senior year of high school was a big time of personal change for me too, so I knew I could get in her headspace, but I didn’t realize how easy it was to slip in to what she was feeling. As a woman of color a lot of what Gabi went through with her mom worrying what kind of girl she would turn into (don’t become like the white people!), and how her mom and aunt didn’t realized their own blatant hypocrisy...that was something myself and a lot of girls in my generation I’m sure can relate to. That part of was done beautifully. It was relatable in other ways too, like how Gabi talked about tacos. There were lots of great bits like that.
I read some reviews that said this was too dramatic in what was going on in Gabi’s life—a drug addict dad and a pregnant best friend?! But I think it’s very plausible. In my own high school there were lots of pregnant girls and people with issues like that with their parents, along with lots of other problems I can’t list. That was the kind of town it was, and I guess that is the kind of town Santa Maria is.
About the poetry. Amazing. Quintero is a beautiful writer. I think a book of just poems could be better released and it would do great. You get a better idea of how she came to the thoughts she did. On the poetry and the zine, and also how strong Gabi’s voice was developed alone, I want to read more of Quintero’s books. Gabi was a different girl at the end of the book than she was at the beginning, but she was at core the same human. That is hard to do.
I wouldn’t say I loved it, because there was never a point where I was so engrossing that I couldn’t put it down. But I really enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to others.
A couple tips before I start the review for anyone getting ready to read this:
It really adds to the book if you pause and read the poems that were mentioned by Gabi that weren’t printed in the book. Second, you don’t need to know any Spanish for this book to be good. I’m sure it would add, but anything that is in Spanish is translated in the next sentence.
This a coming of age story about Gabi during her senior year of high school. Senior year of high school was a big time of personal change for me too, so I knew I could get in her headspace, but I didn’t realize how easy it was to slip in to what she was feeling. As a woman of color a lot of what Gabi went through with her mom worrying what kind of girl she would turn into (don’t become like the white people!), and how her mom and aunt didn’t realized their own blatant hypocrisy...that was something myself and a lot of girls in my generation I’m sure can relate to. That part of was done beautifully. It was relatable in other ways too, like how Gabi talked about tacos. There were lots of great bits like that.
I read some reviews that said this was too dramatic in what was going on in Gabi’s life—a drug addict dad and a pregnant best friend?! But I think it’s very plausible. In my own high school there were lots of pregnant girls and people with issues like that with their parents, along with lots of other problems I can’t list. That was the kind of town it was, and I guess that is the kind of town Santa Maria is.
About the poetry. Amazing. Quintero is a beautiful writer. I think a book of just poems could be better released and it would do great. You get a better idea of how she came to the thoughts she did. On the poetry and the zine, and also how strong Gabi’s voice was developed alone, I want to read more of Quintero’s books. Gabi was a different girl at the end of the book than she was at the beginning, but she was at core the same human. That is hard to do.
I wouldn’t say I loved it, because there was never a point where I was so engrossing that I couldn’t put it down. But I really enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to others.
This book was a rough start for me. As a high-school-English-teacher-turned-librarian, I love a good YA novel, but I do try to be a critical reader. At first, I got a strong vibe that this book was a bit more exclusive than I would have preferred. Gabi and her mom talk about the "loose white women" quite a bit, but as the story unfolds and you learn more about Gabi, it's obvious that she's trying to do right by everyone she cares about. She constantly points out that gender and race have nothing to do with what a "typical" high school teenager does, feels, and experiences. I found myself really caring about Gabi and her friends, and by the middle of the book, I really did want to keep reading to see how things go for Gabi and her senior year. Also as a teacher, I really appreciated the intimate look into the private life of a student who experiences trauma, heartbreak, and all sorts of chaos. It helps me remember that school is not the only thing going on in every student's life. I've already recommended this to several students. It's an easy read, a little profane, but fairly realistic. I wouldn't teacher it as a class novel, but I'm ordering three copies for our library and will definitely share it with many students.
Oh. My. God. I have never had a book speak so directly to me.
This book is for Chicanas. Not that other people couldn't identify with Gabi and her experiences, but THIS book is for us in ways so many other books have never tried to be. The story feels so true and genuine, and the characters are complicated and allowed to react to their environments in ways that don't feel forced or puritanical.
This story will break you apart and put you back together again. It's a triumph.
This book is for Chicanas. Not that other people couldn't identify with Gabi and her experiences, but THIS book is for us in ways so many other books have never tried to be. The story feels so true and genuine, and the characters are complicated and allowed to react to their environments in ways that don't feel forced or puritanical.
This story will break you apart and put you back together again. It's a triumph.
This book is FANTASTIC.
Written as a diary of a single year -- senior year -- of high school, Quintero's novel focuses on what Gabi goes through on a near-daily basis when it comes to family, friends, boys, her future, and more. Gabi's voice is fresh and funny, even amid the exceptionally tough things going on in her life. Her father's a drug addict, her best friend is pregnant, and her best guy friend just came out to her, causing his life to spin out of control because he was kicked out of his home. In the midst of the chaos, Gabi is interested in finding the right boyfriend and she loves the new-found excitement in kissing boys. There are ups and downs with the relationships, but they're awkward and amusing, rendered in a way that's absolutely 17/18-year-old teen girl. In so many ways, this element of the story and the voice more broadly reminded me of Amy Spalding's KISSING TED CALLAHAN and boy would these two books make great read alikes.
What I loved most about this is that the diary style worked. It worked because it was Gabi telling us what happened after the fact, and rather than have to react in the moment, she has to face how she DID react and reflect upon whether it was the right move or not.
Gabi is a FAT GIRL in this book, and the way the fat girl story line is worked into the book is so honest and rewarding. Gabi does struggle with her weight and she's honest about her body and her perceptions of her body, as well as the things other people tell her about her body. But it's not all doom and gloom. Gabi loves to eat and she's not ashamed of being a person who loves to eat (she sneaks stuff because of other people's beliefs about her weight and body). More, though, Gabi isn't self-deprecating and doesn't believe a weight loss fundamentally changes her. In fact, there's no weight loss in here at all. Gabi comes to own who she is AS she is and says that nothing else matters in terms of other people's perspectives about it. It's wholly refreshing.
Likewise, I thought the way Gabi's exploration of sexuality happened was true to her, true to the story, and true to teenagers, period. It's funny and awkward, and it's something she thinks about all the time.
My favorite part, though, was how empowered Gabi was at the beginning and how much more empowered she became in the end because she recognized that power within her. I love how female-centric this novel is and how much Gabi prides herself on being there for her friends, even when things in her own life are upended.
We so, so rarely see a Mexican American girl as the focal point of a story, let alone the person who has complete control over the telling of the story. It's even more rare to see a Mexican American girl get to tell a story about a year in her life in a diary.
I love this book, I love this character, and I cannot wait to see what Quintero writes next.
Written as a diary of a single year -- senior year -- of high school, Quintero's novel focuses on what Gabi goes through on a near-daily basis when it comes to family, friends, boys, her future, and more. Gabi's voice is fresh and funny, even amid the exceptionally tough things going on in her life. Her father's a drug addict, her best friend is pregnant, and her best guy friend just came out to her, causing his life to spin out of control because he was kicked out of his home. In the midst of the chaos, Gabi is interested in finding the right boyfriend and she loves the new-found excitement in kissing boys. There are ups and downs with the relationships, but they're awkward and amusing, rendered in a way that's absolutely 17/18-year-old teen girl. In so many ways, this element of the story and the voice more broadly reminded me of Amy Spalding's KISSING TED CALLAHAN and boy would these two books make great read alikes.
What I loved most about this is that the diary style worked. It worked because it was Gabi telling us what happened after the fact, and rather than have to react in the moment, she has to face how she DID react and reflect upon whether it was the right move or not.
Spoiler
There is a scene where, when Gabi finds out her best friend was raped and she confronts the rapist physically, her diary entry isn't entirely about why she did it, but rather, the oh-shit consequences of doing it, both for herself and for her best friend.Gabi is a FAT GIRL in this book, and the way the fat girl story line is worked into the book is so honest and rewarding. Gabi does struggle with her weight and she's honest about her body and her perceptions of her body, as well as the things other people tell her about her body. But it's not all doom and gloom. Gabi loves to eat and she's not ashamed of being a person who loves to eat (she sneaks stuff because of other people's beliefs about her weight and body). More, though, Gabi isn't self-deprecating and doesn't believe a weight loss fundamentally changes her. In fact, there's no weight loss in here at all. Gabi comes to own who she is AS she is and says that nothing else matters in terms of other people's perspectives about it. It's wholly refreshing.
Likewise, I thought the way Gabi's exploration of sexuality happened was true to her, true to the story, and true to teenagers, period. It's funny and awkward, and it's something she thinks about all the time.
My favorite part, though, was how empowered Gabi was at the beginning and how much more empowered she became in the end because she recognized that power within her. I love how female-centric this novel is and how much Gabi prides herself on being there for her friends, even when things in her own life are upended.
Spoiler
That her worst enemy admitted to being pregnant and asked her to accompany her to an abortion is hugely telling of Gabi and how she handles herself and her relationships.We so, so rarely see a Mexican American girl as the focal point of a story, let alone the person who has complete control over the telling of the story. It's even more rare to see a Mexican American girl get to tell a story about a year in her life in a diary.
I love this book, I love this character, and I cannot wait to see what Quintero writes next.
emotional
reflective
relaxing
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:
N/A
Wanted to like it based on the Latin American background but I’m not a fan of poetry and just didn’t like the diary style this author used. I felt as an adult, it was somewhat boring to read.
I really enjoyed this. Gabi was a charming narrator and had a very genuinely teenagery voice - passionate and conflicted and sometimes confused but ultimately strong and uniquely herself. It reminded me a lot of my own high school days, but in a nice way. I also thought it was one of the better depictions I’ve read of a girl finding her voice as a writer, which was really cool to experience.
Great "slice of life" book with a fantastically realistic teen voice. Knocked off one star for heavy use of YA tropes but this makes it a great read for teens who enjoy and relate to "issue" books (teen pregnancy, drug use, death of a parent, etc). I have an overall very positive feel about the book because the issues did feel realistic--Gabi's voice felt real and I felt like I was reading the diary of a real person.
Recommend to reluctant readers because of the conversational style/diary format. A step up from Ellen Hopkins because of Gabi's general relatability (never got a huge sense of character from any of Hopkins' books). However, will definitely have to work hard to sell this one due to lack of cover appeal. Would purchase another copy if the cover got a reprint.
Recommend to reluctant readers because of the conversational style/diary format. A step up from Ellen Hopkins because of Gabi's general relatability (never got a huge sense of character from any of Hopkins' books). However, will definitely have to work hard to sell this one due to lack of cover appeal. Would purchase another copy if the cover got a reprint.