Books to Read & More!: GABI: A GIRL IN PIECES

Quintero, I. (2014). Gabi: A Girl in Pieces. El Paso, Texas: Cinco Puntos Press.

Gabi Hernandez is a Mexican American 17-year-old girl who lives in California. She is starting her senior year with her best friends are Cindy, who thinks she’s pregnant and Sebastian who’s gay.

Cindy turns out pregnant and what’s worse is that she confesses to Gabi and Sebastian that German raped her. Cindy fears that no one will believe her because she had been drinking and he didn’t hit her or treat her bad, just held her down.

Sebastian on the other hand is kicked out of his house after confessing to his parents that he’s gay and has gone to live with an aunt.

Gabi is trying to figure herself out, she loves to eat, is self-conscious about her weight, calls herself “gordita,” or “fatgirl.” She has a father who’s an addict, a controlling mother who hates that Gabi's fat and is pregnant after 16 years, a judgmental aunt that’s not true to herself, and Beto, her brother that gets away with bad behavior, because “boys will be boys.”

Gabby puts her thoughts in a journal her last year of high school. As soon as I start reading this book, I didn’t want to stop. Being Hispanic, I can relate to the language and traditions that Gabi mentions in her journal. Gaby writes about how it was a sin for her mother to have a baby at 16 and unwed. This YA realistic fiction novel contains some inappropriate language along with issues that we still face today like weight issues, pregnancy, addiction, rape, and being gay. I love the part where she says, “the thing about being fat is that you spend too much damn time worrying about being fat and that takes time away from having fun.” I, myself am guilty of worrying about being fat.

Through poetry she expresses feelings about developing her own confidence, and often wonders if she should she go away to college and leave her family behind.

We see that Gabi going through the pre-conventional stage of moral development as Haveghurst states, she always wants to be a good girl, trying not to get pregnant, one who follows her mom’s house rules and her cultural beliefs.

We also see post-conventional stage when she unleashed the “hammer of Thor” or rather she sat on German and slapped him and gets suspended for it, but is rather hilarious every time I think about how that might have looked. We see Gabi go through high school, graduation, to leaving for college.
This book is on the list of required YA novels.

These are links that contain more information on some of the issues written in the book: