The Girls Who Grew Big

Mottley (Nightcrawling) offers an atmospheric tale of teen moms in the Florida panhandle. Most of the Girls, as they call themselves, are Black and estranged from their families, teenagers who “found each other” from out of their “singular aloneness.” The novel opens with a flashback to the Girls’ de facto leader, Simone, giving birth to twins in the back of her pickup truck, which becomes her home when her parents kick her out. In the present day, the perspective alternates between several narrators: Simone, who finds to her dismay that she is pregnant again; Emory, one of the few white characters, who is determined to apply to college, even as her baby is born during her senior year of high school; and Adela, a wealthy girl who is sent to Florida to live with her grandmother after her parents discover her pregnancy. Adela is mesmerized by the Girls from the moment she sees them twerking in a parking lot on her way into town (“Children mothering children and never apologizing for it,” she observes). A propulsive love triangle between Adela, Simone, and someone’s baby daddy drives much of the narrative, which is poignant without being saccharine, thanks to the sharply drawn characters and their all-too-human behavior. This distinctive coming-of-age story is worth seeking out. (June)