Goodreads Monday: The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley

Goodreads Monday is a really simple weekly meme, hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog, where you choose a book at random from your Goodreads TBR and explain why you want to read it. This meme is also an opportunity to share any progress you have made on your current books, Goodreads Reading Challenge or anything else Goodreads related.

This week’s pick is: The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley

An astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.

Adela is sixteen years old. When she tells her parents she’s pregnant, they send her from their home in Indiana to her grandmother’s in Padua Beach, Florida, “a town built on y’all bein’ good now? and babies havin’ babies, said in the rasp of a loud whisper in the back of a church.” There, Adela meets Emory, who has a baby of her own she brings to high school, strapped to her chest; and Simone, ringleader of “the Girls,” a group of teenage mothers who hang out with their growing brood in the back of her red truck—dancing defiantly, breastfeeding, watching the kids and having each other’s backs. The town thinks they’ve lost their way, but really they are finding looking for love, making and breaking friendships, navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood. But before long they will find themselves on a collision course with one another.

Full of heart, life, and hope, set against shifting sands of power and betrayal, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.

Why do I want to read it?:

I love stories that demonstrate the power and strength of women and young girls. This contemporary novel promises that and more and I’m looking forward to a read that goes a little deeper.

This week’s reading progress:

I had a productive reading week, finally finishing my ARC. I also listened to another 3 audiobooks, each one a four star read, bringing my Goodreads Reading Challenge to over two-thirds completed. YAY!

2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge: 57/75 books (76%)

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