YA review: Han Nolan's Pregnant Pause

Sixteen year-old Eleanor is in a bit of a pinch. She's got a record of trouble with the cops. She has a bad-boy boyfriend who got her pregnant, and she doesn't have a lot of viable options. Her parents are about to leave for Africa, where they work with AIDS orphaned children, and they insist she come with them. Eleanor is stubborn, however, and insists on staying at home. She marries her boyfriend Lam and agrees to live with him at the summer camp for overweight children Lam's parents run. Her new MIL and FIL (mother and father in law) have Eleanor tell the campers she's 20 and imply that she was married before getting knocked up, but no one really believes it. In fact, Eleanor seems to encounter resistance and judgment at every turn-- with the MIL and FIL, the other teenaged counselors, and the kids at the camp. Even her new husband abandons her on their wedding night, choosing to get drunk and high with his fellow high school graduates rather than spend the night with his new wife.
Author Han Nolan takes readers along with Ellie on her emotional roller coaster ride as she readies for the birth of her child and the decisions she isn't ready to make. While Nolan offers no judgment on teen pregnancy, she allows readers to see the judgment Ellie faces from all directions about her situation and the choices she has. Both Lam's parents and Ellie's sister want the baby for reasons of their own and Ellie has reasons not to want either of them to have it. We see Ellie struggle with the weight of that pressure, as well as her turmoil over what to do with the advances of another boy at the camp who promises to care for her and her soon-to-be-born baby.
The target audience is high school, and perhaps middle school, girls. While it'll be a tough sell with most high school boys, it's a worthwhile read for them, as well.

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