by Gaby Rodriguez, Jenna Glatzer
Publication: January 17, 2012
Pages: 218
Gaby: Website | Twitter
Jenna: Website | Facebook | Twitter
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Buy it: Amazon | Kindle | B&N | Book Depository
Growing up, Gaby Rodriguez was often told she would end up a teen mom. After all, her mother and her older sisters had gotten pregnant as teenagers; from an outsider’s perspective, it was practically a family tradition. Gaby had ambitions that didn’t include teen motherhood. But she wondered: how would she be treated if she “lived down” to others’ expectations? Would everyone ignore the years she put into being a good student and see her as just another pregnant teen statistic with no future? These questions sparked Gaby’s school project: faking her own pregnancy as a high school senior to see how her family, friends, and community would react. What she learned changed her life forever, and made international headlines in the process.
In The Pregnancy Project, Gaby details how she was able to fake her own pregnancy—hiding the truth from even her siblings and boyfriend’s parents—and reveals all that she learned from the experience. But more than that, Gaby’s story is about fighting stereotypes, and how one girl found the strength to come out from the shadow of low expectations to forge a bright future for herself.
We live in a world with stereotypes, where we label others based off appearances and initial impressions. While I don’t like being stereotyped, I often make jokes about being Asian. It’s funny to me that while Asians are known for being strong in mathematics, I lean more towards the liberal arts and am actually minoring in English with a Creative Writing specialization. Gaby doesn’t want to live by stereotypes either; however, she takes it a step further in conducting a social experiment on how stereotypes really do influence people.
Despite being known as a good student destined for college, Gaby falls prey to stereotypic views when she fakes a pregnancy. People stopped celebrating her academic achievements and instead start talking about how they knew she was going to get done in at some point. They think she’s ruined her life. It has to take a lot of strength to keep going with the project when people start talking like that both to your face and behind your back. It takes greater strength to keep this to a select few people and accept the disappointment of those who care about you. I really admire Gaby’s courage in going through with his project to prove stereotypes false and to open peoples’ eyes to the reality of teen pregnancies.
While not all of this story is happy, Gaby’s story is certainly an inspirational one with a powerful message behind it. Gaby has not only proven stereotypes false, she has proven that one person can make a difference and that individuals do have the power to make a difference in their lives. This is a story that I recommend reading once.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher. No payment was received in return for a review. The receipt of the book had no influence on the opinions expressed in my review.
Author: Crystal
A story girl at heart, Crystal is a bibliophile who can easily spend the day immersed in a good read. She writes under the name Kristy Wang. You can follow her writing adventures on X and Instagram @_kristywang.
Kat C says
I really did find this book inspirational. I thought I was the only one reading it in the blog world ! I think it paves the way for more YA non-fiction. Did you see the movie of this ?
Crystal says
I haven't watched the movie. Would you recommend watching it?