16 & Pregnant
A Novel
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The bond between two best friends is put to the test when one of them gets pregnant in this “powerful and timely” (award-winning author Angela Johnson) contemporary young adult novel for fans of Angie Thomas and Elizabeth Acevedo.
Erykah was looking forward to junior year at East Prep High. She has a cute boyfriend, gets good grades, and has the best bestie. Money is tight, though that’s nothing new in her world. But everything changes when she gets pregnant. Having a baby at sixteen was definitely not part of the plan.
Kelly’s plan was to dominate junior year—grade-wise and on the basketball court—and eventually get an athletic scholarship. It did not include helping her best friend through a pregnancy. But that’s what best friends do, right? Besides, Kelly has every intention of being a good auntie.
As the two girls navigate the pregnancy, they’ll learn some harsh realities about the world and be forced to make some huge decisions. They’ll also discover a deep reserve of strength and compassion…for each other and themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black 16-year-old best friends Erykah and Kelaya, who live in Lynwood Heights, Nev., have big plans for their futures: Erykah wants to study business at Howard University, and Kelly, a talented basketball player, dreams of playing in the WNBA. But when Erykah's unplanned pregnancy imperils her goals, her mother insists she get an abortion, and though her Latinx-cued boyfriend Miguel assures her he'll support her throughout the pregnancy, his mercurial personality sows doubt. Unbeknownst to her mother, Erykah chooses not to terminate the pregnancy and, with Kelly's help, keeps her decision a secret from her community. As Erykah's pregnancy progresses, however, she struggles with unforeseen health complications, and Kelly makes a decision that drives a wedge between them. Tension around Erykah's financial precarity and Kelly's affluent upbringing heightens their individual conflicts. Via the girls' alternating perspectives, Thomas expertly balances Erykah and Kelly's vastly different home lives to compassionately dissect themes of class and misogynoir around life-changing decisions. Believably peppered with facts about Black maternal healthcare, this thought-provoking debut inspired by the reality TV show of the same name is an authentic exploration of the right to choose. Ages 14–up.
