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fishari 's review for:
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces
by Isabel Quintero
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.