I loved Nightcrawling and I loved this.

The writing was so beautiful, just stunning. You could feel every part of this novel from beginning to end, and the narrators were fantastic. And it takes place in Florida. The story is heavy, but it’s a great listen. Adding to my top books list for the year.

Thank you @netgalley and @aaknopf for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

An engrossing story of young, teenage mothers, some who have been abandoned by their families, who bond together to raise their children. This is a poignant story of survival. These young ladies come together and rely on one another for so many things that most of us take for granted. Lovely writing and character development take us on a journey with these women that is worth reading. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

This book was so good. It was incredibly well-written; these characters had so much depth to each of them and the stories were woven together so well. The author mentions in the beginning that teenage mothers are usually dismissed as all being young and naive, each having made the same mistake to get there. But each mother’s story was different and felt raw and real. I’m really itching to read something else by Mottley.

I received a copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

A group of girls, all marginalized teenage moms, form their own little tribe, where they can offer the support and companionship to each other that they no longer get from their real families.
Things get complicated when a new girl moves to town and joins their small group, upsetting the status quo.
This was pretty good; closer to three and a half stars.
Thanks to #netgalley and #knopf for this #arc of #thegirlswhogrewbig in exchange for an honest review.

What an incredible story!
This one took me by complete surprise.
“The Girls Who Grew Big,” is about three young girls who find themselves pregnant and with children in their teens. They come from a small town in Panhandle Florida. Pudua Beach is so small it’s not even on a map. Simone, being the first to have babies at 16 takes the girls that come after her under her wing. These girls come from underprivileged backgrounds and are pushed out when they find themselves pregnant. These women are resilient and full of grit despite the many hardships they face. They are young and still so full of life, but they aren’t perfect. They show up for one another and they support each other.

This felt like a raw and true depiction of what a teenager girl would/could possibly face. I really enjoyed this one. I’ll definitely e recommending to everyone and reading more from this author.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf books for an early copy.

Leila Mottley has a way with words. I loved Nightcrawling and her follow up was not a disappointment. First of all, I appreciated the uniqueness of her plot and characters. There just aren’t many books about the challenges faced by teenage mothers. This captured well the stigma, loneliness, fear and longing that they face and also did a great job portraying the deep friendships that connected them and enabled them to grow and persevere. The growth the main Girls experienced was inspiring and realistic. I loved seeing each of them struggle to come into their own and accept who they were. I continue to look forward to Mottley’s future work!

Loved it. Sometimes the style of prose felt a little...overwrought? But The characters were distinct and they all made me think about perception, society, and girlhood.

A novel about teenage girls who are single pregnant, have babies but have nowhere to live. The author covers relationships good and bad. Covering how these girls survived on their own in a community of just themselves.

"Sometimes happiness feels like a snake in the grass." WHEWWW this book broke my heart and knit it back together. Leila perfectly captured girlhood, friendship, heartache, and the at times cosmic cruelty of existing on this floating rock. I waited to impatiently for this book and it was well worth it.

Leila Mottley’s The Girls Who Grew Big is a novel that redefines what it means to grow up fast—and grow strong. Set in the town of Padua Beach, Florida, the story follows a group of teenage mothers who refuse to be reduced to statistics or shame. Instead, they build a sisterhood in the back of a red pickup truck, raising babies, defending each other, and daring to dream beyond the limits placed on them.
Mottley crafts a narrative that’s both gritty and poetic. Each girl is beautifully flawed, achingly real, and unforgettable. Their stories—of exile, ambition, heartbreak, and resilience—are woven with compassion and defiance.

The Girls Who Grew Big is a moving story about three teen moms—Simone, Emory, and Adela—who find strength in each other after being pushed to the margins of society. Set in the heat of coastal Florida, the novel follows them through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, all while they live out of a truck and try to hold onto hope. Leila Mottley’s writing is incredibly powerful, giving each girl a distinct voice and making their struggles feel both personal and relatable.

While the novel is full of heart and beautifully written, some moments are super intense, which can help tie the relatability to the story. Mottley captures the emotional intensity of young motherhood with care and compassion. This is a story about survival, sisterhood, and growing up too fast.

I ended up listening to The Girl Who Grew Big and I really enjoyed itt. It was a touching story about friendship, love, motherhood and resilience.

This was a story of a fierce group of girls supporting each other when no one else in their lives was, because they were teen mothers. It was about the strong bonds of chosen family and called into question all the stereotypes of teen mothers. I was rooting for all of them and it made me reconsider the biases I hold. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Told in multiple viewpoints of three fiercely independent pregnant teens and teenage mothers who befriend and depend on one another, this novel is filled with raw emotions and layered messages of resilience and strength, as well as vulnerability and the desire for and to be loved. Adela, Emory and Simone’s story is both heartbreaking yet heartwarming and sheds light on the reality of young motherhood…still young tender hearted individuals searching for love and acceptance. A quite powerful read with beautiful prose.

Here’s the opening paragraph of this gem of a book:

“Nobody ever warns you about the placenta. Like, you spend days seizing and stretching open to get some shoulders out your coochie and then the baby, or babies in my case, are writhing in your arms, and you realize it’s not even over. You’ve still gotta push out this pulsing purple heart bigger than your man’s head—and my man had a big-ass head—and find a way to cut the cords.”

Hooked yet? I was! And the birth is taking place in the back of a pickup truck! Okay, give me more! I’m ready for action!

Here’s a couple of other quotes to whet your appetite:

“But before we were an us, before we merged into one glorious sea, we were just our own sad drops of water in a cavernous basin of thirst.”

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know much of nothing back then, sitting in that pickup truck staring at my placenta.”

Oh this was such a good read! I requested an advance copy because I loved Mottley’s gritty and award-winning debut novel, Nightcrawling. This writer was a teenager when she wrote that one! Now she’s just 23! Impossible to believe she is this young and this talented. Her stories and her characters are compelling, her language is to die for, and she is wise beyond her years. Plus she writes with emotion:

“I’d rip myself open not to see my child hurt.”

And we, in turn, get emotionally attached.

Anyway, only after I requested this book did I look at what the book was about: a couple of teenage moms and one about-to-be mom. Hm…really? Is this something that will grab me? A story about teenage moms could mean a lot of talk about cute toddlers, oh they say the darnedest things! Or a lot of talk about breast feeding and changing diapers and momma drama that no one but new moms would give a damn about. But I’m here to tell you that this old fart, far removed from mom-land, loved just about every second of this book! (Ha, and you saw how the beginning did me in!)

The story is about three teens who hang out in a small, poor town in Florida. One is black, one is white, one is biracial. I was super impressed by the fact that each character (and each voice) is so unique and well-developed. Their interactions are perfectly drawn and seem authentic as all get out. There is some serious tension among them at times, but also lots of camaraderie and love. There are hard decisions and some serious heartaches. The kids are cute and not annoying, and they don’t take over the story. All three moms are in survival mode and they work hard at it.

A Complaint Board item: one character, Simone, is uneducated (didn’t finish high school) and her language isn’t so hot, but now and then she goes out of character and talks like a college student. For example, I don’t buy it when she talks about the history of the Earth:

“Millions of years ago, the icy Appalachian Mountains teetering above us started to melt…. Over the next millions of years, that magnificent green ocean….”

When her voice changes like that, I have trouble knowing who she really is.

She is super wise and talks poetically a lot of the time, and I enjoyed that—although some might find her sophisticated, juicy metaphors a stretch. I know, people don’t really talk like that, but I forgave that because I loved the language so much. The other two characters are equally metaphor-y.

The book did seem to lose some steam in the last quarter. A little bit of schmaltz, and a little less action. Too much philosophy about life. But by then I was so enthralled, I was invested in it and was dying to find out all the girls’ fates. I really liked the ending and liked that it wasn’t predictable.

This is a great book. For some reason it took me a while to read it, but every time I picked it up I was excited. And it was still easy to follow, even though there were long breaks between readings.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book.

Leila Mottley’s The Girls Who Grew Big is beautifully written, with vivid prose and a clear sense of place that makes the Florida panhandle come alive, but the pacing often felt slow and the story wasn’t quite to my taste. While I admired the author’s lyrical style and the compassionate way she portrays the challenges of teenage motherhood, the narrative didn’t fully capture my engagement. Still, Mottley’s talent shines through, and I can appreciate why others might find this novel deeply moving, even if it wasn’t entirely for me. Solid 4 stars.

The Girls Who Grew Big is a novel that follows the ups and downs of a group of teenage mothers in Florida.

I could not imagine being exhaled by my family just because of getting pregnant as a teenager, but this was the harsh reality that the Girls had to deal with in this story. Despite being viewed as outcasts, this group of young mothers just wanted to be loved at the end of the day whether it was from the adults in their life or their children.

The Girls Who Grew Big in this novel, the Girls where not only big in terms of their pregnant bellies, but also in their determination to do better for themselves and grow as people regardless of having children.

My favorite character is Noni (Adela's grandmother) who imparted such great wisdom.

What a notable, emotional, and tense book!

4,25 stars

Leila Mottley’s The Girls Who Grew Big is a raw, luminous story of resilience that never slips into cliché. She crafts three distinct teen moms with such care that their struggles—juggling babies, Leila Mottley’s The Girls Who Grew Big is a raw, luminous story of resilience that never slips into cliché. She creates three distinct teen moms with such care that their struggles—juggling babies, bruised family ties, and dreams bigger than their circumstances—feel deeply personal and painfully honest. Each girl is flawed but remains deeply empathetic, and together they form a chorus of survival and sisterhood. Mottley doesn’t just tell their stories; she allows them to breathe.

This book was a work. Five BIG, pregnant stars. This story focuses mostly around a trio of young mothers, put out by their families and communities, to find each other and themselves. It read so quickly, but the sentences often required a second read just for how beautiful and poignant they were. The heartbreak is big in this book. I cannot place myself in the shoes of these characters, as a married, white, first time mother at 31, but the insight on mothering is universal and I will keep so many of those next to me.. This is one of the best books I've read this year.

“The Girls Who Grew Big” by Leila Mottley tells the story of a group of teenage moms living in Florida. The three narrators are either pregnant or have recently given birth. I found Mottley’s writing beautiful and empathetic. The story was heartbreaking, in the girl’s destitution, monetarily but also in their relational supports. The beauty of the book came from how the girl’s had each other to lean on and how much they loved their children. But when the reader is confronted with the characters living in a car or not having protection from a hurricane, the boot-strap-ness becomes bleak. I loved it.