The Girls Who Grew Big
by Leila Mottley
read by AhDream Smith, Erin Spencer, and Khaya Fraites
Books on Tape, 2025. 11 hours, 50 minutes.
Review written April 15, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
2026 Alex Award Winner
This isn’t a book I would have picked up, except that it won a 2026 Alex Award, which is given to the previous year’s ten best books published for adults that are of interest to teens. The award process ensures that these books are well-written, and I haven’t regretted putting them on hold. (This one is popular enough, it took a long time for the hold to come in.)
The Girls Who Grew Big is about a gang of teen mothers who hang out together in the town of Paduah, on the panhandle of Florida. “Gang” probably isn’t the right word, though that’s probably how the town sees them. More than once the audiobook describes them as a coven – though the only magic is the magic of community.
There are three viewpoint characters. Simone’s the one who started the group when she gave birth to her twins in the back of her red truck. Now the kids are five years old and they live in the truck, parking where they won’t get tracked down by Child Protective Services, and often hosting the rest of the girls in the group. Simone can give tips for getting babies to nurse or other tricks of parenting. The twins’ father is around just enough to pay attention to them now and then – but also to keep the authorities off their backs.
Simone’s brother Jayden is in love with Emory, who recently gave birth to his son. The school counselor wants to push her to a special school with accommodations for teen mothers, but Emory is determined to finish her senior year as valedictorian and go on to college. She brings her baby to school in a sling, and the teachers will just have to deal with that.
And then a new girl comes to town from Indiana named Adela. Her parents sent her to her grandmother’s place when she got pregnant. She can have the baby, give it up for adoption, and their rich friends need never know. She can go back to competitive swimming and maybe regain her hope (or at least her dad’s hope) of swimming in the Olympics. But when she gets to know the girls, life starts looking different.
So that’s the pot this novel starts with, and very soon, the pot gets stirred. These girls that folks from the town dismiss or look down on are figuring out what they really want in their lives and how they’re going to get it. And along the way they’ll learn that they are not people to be dismissed.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/girls_who_grew_big.html
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