Unpregnant

Can a book about a teenager who has to drive thousands of miles to get an abortion, due to the restrictive and punitive laws in her home state, be funny? Should it be? I'm not sure how I feel about this book TBH. On the one hand, it sheds some needed light on the struggle to maintain women's reproductive rights over their own bodies, and it celebrates female friendship. Plus I have to give props to a YA book from a major publishing house that isn't afraid to include the main character saying “FUUUUCK YOU MISSOURI STATE LEGISLATURE.” Which I repeat so often it might as well be my ringtone.

On the other hand, the serious stuff is sometimes awkwardly interspersed with slapstick humor, especially as Veronica's boyfriend Kevin becomes more of a cartoon villain and less like a human being who did a terrible thing. I'm not opposed to using humor to illuminate a difficult topic, but I don't think this is a good story to almost literally drop an anvil on. And the entire book can be read in the course of about an hour (it started as a screenplay and still reads like one) so there isn't too much room for deep character development.

Given our current political climate, I'm just glad that Harper Teen wasn't afraid to publish Unpregnant. So I'll give it a qualified recommendation, if only to encourage them to consider other novels that portray women's issues in a slightly more nuanced way.