UnbecomingReview posted October 24, 2024
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024. 352 pages.
Review written October 21, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review
Unbecoming is just barely speculative fiction - may it continue to be speculative! It's about a near-future United States where abortion is illegal, and so is any and all type of hormonal pill. So birth control pills are illegal, as is hormone replacement therapy and IVF.
Our two teen protagonists, Laylah and Noor, are seniors in high school living in Texas in a Muslim community. Laylah is active with the mosque youth group, but Noor has been staying away for a couple years. They are working together to write an online website called "A Texas Teen's Guide to Safe Abortion."
But as the book opens, Laylah is in a sketchy mobile clinic disguised as a taco truck - and learns that she is pregnant.
This does not fit with her plans to go to medical school and become a doctor. She would like to take the abortion pill within 70 days since her last period - the time when it's effective - but that clinic is out of them and says they're impossible to find in Texas.
So the book is about Laylah trying to pretend nothing is wrong and that she's researching for the Guide - but trying to find a way to get the abortion pill before she runs out of time. Her adventures include a couple of dangerous scenarios, and the clock is ticking the whole time. (If she has to get a surgical abortion, she's told she'll have to go to Mexico.)
Meanwhile, Noor is working to become an investigative journalist, and she's convinced the wife of the iman and leader of the mosque's youth group is up to something shady with mosque funds. But she doesn't want to tell Laylah, because Laylah trusts the woman. And on top of this there are family expectations, not to mention the expectations of all the ladies in their community. So both Laylah and Noor have secrets from each other and feel guilty about it.
This is a good book to read before the election - may it never come true!
Now, if you believe abortion is murder (as I once did), this might be hard to read. Laylah doesn't give a thought to the beginning life inside her and can be taken as an example of someone who forgot to use birth control and now is paying the price. (It didn't help that the birth control pill is illegal, but her partner didn't use a condom, either, and she's kicking herself.)
But hold on. Even if you believe that, this book illustrates the exact thing that made me stop being a one-issue voter about abortion. Why would banning abortion work any better than Prohibition did? If you pass a law that the majority do not feel is right - it's going to become a matter of pride and virtue to help people get around that law. All the mobile clinics, including the sketchy ones, the teen guide - you'd better believe a whole network would rise up to subvert the law. It would end up being only the people with the most resources and connections who could find safe treatment, but definitely a movement would rise up.
Either way, you're going to have sympathy for a teen who made one bad decision, knows she did, and now must deal with the consequences. Seema Yasmin tells a good story about interesting characters. Oh, and there's a historical story in this book about her grandmother in India who almost got involuntarily sterilized by her government in the 1970s. (I had no idea that happened.) Controlling people's reproductivity has a long history.
This book gives you a good story, but it also makes you think.