Thank you to Scholastic for this book in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis:

Veronica is top of her class – and somehow she’s found herself gazing in disbelief at a positive pregnancy test. Even worse, her ex-best friend and the high school’s legendary malcontent, Bailey, is the only one there to help. In this warm and darkly funny road trip story, Veronica and Bailey drive a thousand miles to an out-of-state abortion clinic – rediscovering their friendship in the process

Review:

I am in two minds about this book.

One, the abortion topic needs to be discussed.

Two, the topic of forced pregnancy needs to be discussed.

Now before we dive right into these massive two topics in which the book was centred on, I should say, that my view is my view alone and doesn’t reflect the publisher, author or even reflects the dolphins in the see. Have the same opinion as me, well that’s awesome. If we don’t have the same opinion, that’s fine too, just don’t yell at me for it.

The book itself was really well written, the characters were realistic and modern and storyline was really unique. One of the aspects of what I loved about this book…

Alright Unpregnant tells a story about Veronica, the perfect high-school student who is going to valedictorian, has the perfect boyfriend and has the perfect lie but that all changes when she falls pregnant. Which leads me to my two topics.

The first one is that abortion needs to be discussed. Now if you are prolife or prochoice, those decisions are you own and you can’t force your opinions on other people. In this book the character opted for an abortion and because of the restricting and controlling laws in the state of the USA in which she lives, she has to road trip to a place that allows abortions to take place. I am all for this. This conversation should happen with young girls in which BOTH sides of the topic gets discussed and she makes up her own mind on what SHE wants to do with HER body. But with humans having the need to shove their opinions in everyone else’s face, you find that parents will force their children to have the same belief as them, will ensure their group of friends have the same opinions as them and enclose themselves in this bubble where only their view is the only option. But having a book like this on local library shelves, on their friends bookcases and give them the chance to choice what they want to do with their body.

So amongst the friendship and humour of this book is a RELEVANT topic the needs to be open and needs to be discussed. So for that I praise the author and suggests that anyone reads this book.

Now for the part of the book that actually got me angry. Veronica, our leading lady, got pregnant because her boyfriend poked holes in the condom. Yep what a dick. Whilst this is obviously a crucial part of the story and I get that. The part that annoyed me is that his crime was shrugged off…. Ummm? What? I swear if a guy did this to me, there would be hell to pay. And if I heard that a friend did this to their partner, I would be giving her a stern talking to. At no point in life is it okay to fuck with other people’s bodies!!! So after finishing the book, I of course had to do the research behind it. Apparently this happens a lot, like wayyy too much to be comfortable. Even though it’s fraud, it has to go to court to get settles and it the punishment for this is a bloody slap on the wrist.

SO let’s head over to the USA where abortion is illegal in some states and you find a young woman that is in this situation. To her knowledge she was being safe until she finds out what happened to her. Now we have a young woman who was FORCED to be pregnant and now is in a situation where there is nothing she can do about it. Her choice was taken away from her.

It annoyed me that the boyfriend’s actions get shrugged off. I don’t think this is sending the right message to men and females. His actions are horrid and honestly he deserved to at least fall down the stairs and break his ankles.

Wrapping this up, this book legit tore me half because I got involved in the politics of it all, (Sorry the feminist in me cannot help it) Taking away the major topics of this book, it was amazing but I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that yet again, a male got away with it.

Rating: 3/5

Publisher: Chicken House

ISBN: 9781912626168