Review by Booklist Review
ldquo;I'll put it this way: teen moms, like Florida, are the country's favorite scapegoat." Simone, one of the main characters in Mottley's latest compelling and uplifting novel (following Nightcrawling, 2022), makes this observation after giving birth at age 16 to twins in her wayward boyfriend's truck. It is a portentous observation, and one that causes Simone to form a community of support and mutual aid in Padua Beach, her small Florida panhandle town. The novel is narrated from the alternating points of view of three of the young women in the "Group"--Simone, Emory, and the newly arrived Adela, each with their own distinct experience of teen motherhood. Mottley is an elegant and expressive writer, giving each of her unforgettable characters a fullness and relatability that will appeal to many readers. She also evokes facets of motherhood, alienation, first love, and vulnerability through poetic and stirring imagery: "The bow of our bellies smooth and arched like a glorious moon that can no longer be eclipsed. In these weeks, we start to worry as much as we start to wonder: Who is curled inside us, who are we to be the sanctuary for someone to curl inside?" Give to fans of Brit Bennett's The Mothers (2016) and Kirstin Valdez Quade's The Five Wounds (2021).
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Mottley (Nightcrawling) offers an atmospheric tale of teen moms in the Florida panhandle. Most of the Girls, as they call themselves, are Black and estranged from their families, teenagers who "found each other" from out of their "singular aloneness." The novel opens with a flashback to the Girls' de facto leader, Simone, giving birth to twins in the back of her pickup truck, which becomes her home when her parents kick her out. In the present day, the perspective alternates between several narrators: Simone, who finds to her dismay that she is pregnant again; Emory, one of the few white characters, who is determined to apply to college, even as her baby is born during her senior year of high school; and Adela, a wealthy girl who is sent to Florida to live with her grandmother after her parents discover her pregnancy. Adela is mesmerized by the Girls from the moment she sees them twerking in a parking lot on her way into town ("Children mothering children and never apologizing for it," she observes). A propulsive love triangle between Adela, Simone, and someone's baby daddy drives much of the narrative, which is poignant without being saccharine, thanks to the sharply drawn characters and their all-too-human behavior. This distinctive coming-of-age story is worth seeking out. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A group of teen mothers gathers in solidarity. Mottley's second novel, followingNightcrawling (2022), concerns the Girls, a clique of young women in the coastal town of Padua Beach, Florida, united by their teen pregnancies and active contempt for the families, schools, and other social structures that seek to diminish them. The story alternates among three narrators, starting with leader Simone, who in a vivid opening scene describes chewing off her umbilical cord in the bed of a pickup truck for lack of a knife. (Well, a clean one--her partner's dingy blade, like most of the men in this story, doesn't measure up.) The second narrator, Adela, an aspiring Olympic swimmer until her pregnancy, has been shipped by her family to Padua Beach until she gives birth. The third, Emory, has an infant son, Kai, whom she insists on bringing to high school during her senior year, determined to go to college. Each in their own way claps back against their critics, hyperalert to how they're diminished: "You wouldn't believe what happens when a girl these days gets knocked up," Emory says. "Suddenly, it's the most important thing about you…You are nothing but a young mother." Mottley's lyrical prose and spirited characters are meant to be a counterweight to such reductionism, and there are fine set pieces throughout: bonding over breastfeeding methods, selling "jungle juice" to spring breakers for extra funds, a harrowing homebrew abortion that's forced by hyperrestrictive state legislation. The plot can get soap opera--ish--Simone's brother, Jayden, is the father of Emory's child, and romantic squabbles abound. At times, Mottley's prose gets overheated: "They don't tell you in first aid training about the way blood works, about the thump and swirl of red hot beneath the skin and what happens when it runs drought dry." But the ferocity of her characters gets over, letting an aggressively misunderstood group speak for itself. A sensual set of character studies, shaped by compassion and defiance. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
