So many pieces to Gabi



 Quintero, I. (2014) Gabi A Girl in Pieces. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press
Gabi’s senior year kicks off with some serious drama. It’s not completely hers though; it concerns her two best friends.  Cindy got pregnant on a drunken one-night stand, and Sebastian has just come out of the closet.  Neither sets of parents are particularly understanding.  Sebastian actually gets kicked out of his home.  Gabi does have some trouble closer to home.  Her dad is a serious meth addict.  He announces that he’s decided to go clean, and Gabi really thinks he can do it this time.  Her dad’s sister, Tia Bertha, comes to live with them to help him through this time.  Unfortunetly, it seems this new clean life style only lasts long enough to get Gabi’s mom pregnant.  Around this time, Gabi gets her first boyfriend and her first heart break.  She catches the jerk cheating on her at the mall.  She soon gets over it though because she wasn’t all that into Eric, Martin in her poetry class on the other hand has merit.    Soon Martin and Gabi start to date.  Then tragedy strikes when Gabi finds her dad dead in the garage from overdose.  Martin and her family help her get through this tough time.  Both Cindy and Gabi’s mom have their babies.  Cindy’s baby is named for her two friends, Sebastian Gabriel.  Gabi’s new baby brother is named Ernie.  Gabi continues to fall in love with poetry and Martin.  Things continue to be awesome when she finds out that she was admitted to her dream school, Berkley!  But they turn for the worse when  Cindy admits to her friends that she was raped by German, but too frightened  and ashamed to admit it.  This results in Gabi having a confrontation with German in the hall at school, which gets her suspended.  With that suspension comes not being able to walk at graduation.  In the end though, it doesn’t matter.  She has her family, her boyfriend, and her future at Berkley.
I didn’t expect to, but I actually liked this book.  It gave me a fresh perspective on what it is to be A.), Latino, B.)a girl, and C.) a teenager.  While I do have some experience with A and C, I have none with B.  These three things coalesce into beings in which I pretty much spend my every day with.  Many of the events of the book were not a surprise as this is a very similar population to the one where I live (my students seem to think I can’t hear everything they say in my classroom).  I loved hearing Gabi’s complexion problems.  I have the same one, no one would believe I was Hispanic until I tell them my name is Guillermo.  This book gave me more insight on the students I serve, and I can see myself recommending it to some of them in the future.
I read this book because it was on my required reading list.

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