Unpregnant

YA fiction

    "...I'd spend the night in a cell that stank of urine with a crazy woman called Drunk Marge and then in the morning my parents would show up to bail me out.  They'd find out what I planned and I'd lose my scholarship and have to live with my parents as an unwed mother for the rest of my life.  The highlight of my week would be finding my favorite frozen dinners half off at the grocery store.  The grocery store I probably worked at.  And all because Bailey wanted to climb a stupid pink elephant."

     Veronica, protagonist of Jenni Hendriks  and Ted Caplan's Unpregnant, has a life a lot of teens would envy.  She's slaying her courses to the extent that she's class valedictorian.  She's been accepted at an ivy league school.  She has a crew of pretty, popular besties.  And there's that ultra hot, uber popular boyfriend, Kevin.  What could possibly go wrong?

     How about two lines on a pregnancy test?  How about Kevin's admission that he intentionally sabotaged the condoms?  His plan for them to marry, settle down, and start a family which would derail all she's worked so hard for?  How about the fact that the nearest place that would allow her to get an abortion is over 900 miles away and she doesn't have transportation?

     How is Veronica going to terminate her very unplanned pregnancy without destroying the image all the important people in her life have of her?  

     "Bailey looked at my outstretched hand and cocked an eyebrow.  ' I see you're still wearing your purity ring.  Just keeping up appearances?  Or is this some sort of virgin birth thing?...'"

     Veronica and Bailey had been best friends before high school had sorted them into very different social groups.  While Veronica has soared with the elite, Bailey has been the school pariah.  She's sarcastic, unpredictable, and not exactly felony aversive.  

     But she has a car and is willing to make the trip as long as they include a stop in Roswell.  So what could go wrong now?  

     How about Kevin turning stalker, still determined to get Veronica to go along with his plan, and showing up at all the worst times--like when she and Bailey are trying to get away from a stripper and her husband who are anti abortion religious fanatics?

     How about being chased by the dogs they're supposed to beware of when Bailey insists on climbing a huge elephant statue on land clearly marked no trespassing?

     How about having Bailey's car, which she'd actually stolen, trashed by some teenage boys whose advances she and Veronica had spurned at a diner?

     Unpregnant deals with some very important issues such as the difficulty, if not impossibility, of teenage girls getting abortions, the cruelty of high school caste like social segregation, and the pressure to be no less  than perfect that many girls face.  I think  it would be a great mother-daughter book club read.

On a purrrsonal note, since it's August it's Backpack Project season.  It's our third year.  I've made a really big delivery improvement.  The first two years I delivered all the packs in one night which made for stress and serious backaches.  So over the school year I bought stuff ahead at thrift shops and when regular stores had sales with donated money.  I set aside enough that with beginning donations I've made over half the deliveries.  As donations ramp up I'll fill and deliver the rest of this summer's packs and set stuff aside for kids running out of things, new kids moving in, and next summer which will be year four. (Jules)

She is smart.  And she has opposable thumbs.  What I could do with opposable thumbs! (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to all who have donated supplies and money.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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