Cover Image: Belly Up

Belly Up

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Member Reviews

Belly Up is a virtual smorgasbord of representation with the author adding everything but the kitchen sink into one story. You have every demographic represented within a short number of pages: Asexuality (ace), trans (MTF), bisexuality, demisexual, and queer in one or more of the main characters, as well as race/nationality: Jewish, biracial, Swedish (mentioned a lot). I am not sure if the author is trying to use this book as a teaching book, but sometimes it felt forced and preachy instead of casual and realistic. I find books more enjoyable when the characters are who they are without having to explain it or preach it (Christina Lauren's Autoboyography and Becky Albertalli"s Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda come to mind here). That being said, if I take my comfortability out of it, the author does a great job dealing with heavy topics. Other reviews kept referring to this book as a positive or negative Juno comparison. I am not sure why every book with a pregnant teen needs a Juno comparison, but this book is not Juno. The character has to navigate school, relationships, family, consequences, and a future with or without a baby, and it morphs into a story that is a fast-paced read with a satisfying ending. Expect mixed reviews on the love it or hate it as it seems to trigger strong responses in either camp. Overall I enjoyed the book, a first for me by this author.

I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Eva Darrows (aka Hillary Monahan) never disappoints. I love her writing, and I loved this story. Will definitely be adding this to my library's shelves.

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I received Belly Up by Eva Darrows as an ARC from NetGalley. Belly Up tells the story of Sara who gets pregnant her senior year after having sex for the first time with a stranger. The characters in the book are very quirky and interesting and I enjoyed the story. The one thing I disliked about the book was that everything went so easy for Sara with her pregnancy which is not very realistic for a teen pregnancy.

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3.5 Love the snarky, funny side of this author. This book also has a lot of great diverse rep via various LGBTQ+ and racially diverse characters, religious beliefs, inter-generational relationships, and a MC who is already thinking about how her baby's gender may be different later in life than at birth.

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Belly Up is a cute story that I received an ARC of from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I haven't read many YA books that are told from the perspective of a teen mom, which is why I was really excited to get a copy of this book. The story starts of with Sara going to a party and drunkenly hooking up with a guy. I think Sara's character starts off really strong. I found her relatable and likable. I also liked this book's discussion of birth control, gender and sexuality.  I never found it preachy either. 

I really enjoyed watching Sara's romance develop with Leaf. He was such a well written character, and it was super cool to learn about Romani traditions through him. There is no toxic masculinity in Leaf and I just loved him.

The story itself was okay.  I felt like the author could have made it a little clearer why Sara decided to go ahead with her pregnancy. To me it felt sort of like she just went with the flow and did what she felt like her mother and grandmother thought she should do. At the same time I did enjoy both of the women in Sara's life. I don't feel like her mother was pushy in any way, and I loved how the two of them supported each other.  The plot felt a little lacking overall though, maybe it's just me but I felt like the subject of teen pregnancy should have been dealt with a more serious tone. This book just felt too breezy. 

In the end I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads.

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This wasn't the best book I've ever read but I still enjoyed it. I like how it felt relatable and the characters seemed down to earth. It was a quick enjoyable read.

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I'm of two minds about this book. On the one hand, the message that teenagers who become pregnant have options, and that those options can be positive and lead to happy, fulfilling lives, is important and certainly comforting. But on the other, Sara's particular story felt somewhat frictionless. The particular circumstance of her pregnancy might be less than ideal, but nearly every other element - a supportive mother and supportive although ornery grandmother, a safe, consistent, and free living situation, a ride-or-die best friend, an almost unrealistically perfect boyfriend, interested and enlightened new friends - seemed to make the narrative sedate. Even the reintroduction of the baby's father and his family, or the jealousy about her friends' and classmates' college plans did not seem particularly emotionally engaged.

Sara is a well-written and interesting character, and the writing flows well for the most part (although I frequently bumped on the little info dumps which stud the text). But there's something of a checklist feel to the story, and I did find myself wondering whether things would be a bit more compelling if the book had been about one of the other teen mothers introduced in the brief support group scene.

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I may be a tad bit biased due to my own life experience as a teen mom, but I love this book. It is a complete departure from the “oh I got knocked up and now my parents disown me” garbage we are usually fed. That is when we even get books anymore that tackle this issue.

Far too many people still believe talking about teen pregnancy glamorizes it and makes everyone want to run out and get pregnant. Statistics show that teen pregnancy is happening far less in 2018-2019 than in previous years.

Belly Up allows us into the lives of Serandipity, Devi, Jack, Erin, Morgan, and Leaf. We also go along for a ride with Sara’s mom and Mormor.

Sara rags along to a party with Devi where she sees her ex hugged up with his new boo. They put on a show and Sara gets in her feelings about it. She meets Jack and after too many drinks she ends up having revenge sex in Jack’s pickup. Life seem returns to normal until Sara realizes several weeks later that she is pregnant.

We follow along as Sara makes some tough decisions.

All in all, Belly Up is a cute story. It is a necessary story. I did wait for plot twists that did not happen but that wasn’t factored into my thoughts on the book simply because this is a contemporary that isn’t a place for plot twists.

I love how Sara makes her choices known, despite popular opinion from those around her. And I am greatful that she tackles some topics (such as gender identity and sexuality) even when people are under some strange assumption that teens don’t or shouldn’t think about these things.

I highly recommend this book. I certainly plan on buying copies for my daughter and her friends. Probably a few copies for their high school library as well. I would have loved to have had this book when I was 14/15 and going through these things. My experience wasn’t as smooth sailing as Sara’s but this book then certainly would have opened my eyes to the fact everything was going to turn out fine.

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I was first attracted to this book because I am always interested in media portrayals of teen pregnancy, In fact it's a topic I'm so passionate about I wrote my final paper in college English Lit on the subject.

Whenever I start any fiction book about pregnancy, I am particularly interested on how experienced the author is with the topic and how accurately they write about it. As a 3 time pregnant mom, doula, and childbirth educator I catch when things don't make sense. So I was very happy that the pregnancy facts and experiences in Belly Up are very accurate to real life and pregnancy.

The second thing I really enjoyed about this book were Sara's struggles with self-identity as a biracial person growing up in a predominantly white area. I myself am white/hispanic mixed and also grew up in New England so many of her thoughts and experiences rang true for me. It's a struggle that not many people understand since unfortunately we still lack a vast mixed population in this country.

This book also addresses all spectrums of gender and sextual identification. I have spent the last 11 years living in the conservative deep south so these topics aren't the daily norm for me. But when I graduated in 2006 in NH, things were much more progressive than they are even now here. So the way these topics were handled made sense for the area and setting in 2019.

Overall I really enjoyed Belly Up and plan to look for more from Eva Darrows.

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I was so pleasantly surprised by this book! I'm not a huge fan of most contemporary but I found this to be such a refreshing read. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. Sara's voice is so funny and unique and her interactions with other characters, especially her family, were wonderful. I loved the Larssen clan--each woman had great characterization and flare that added a lot to the story.
My only issue with this book was Leaf. He seemed a bit too flawless and accepting and it would have been nice to see him be a bit more dynamic in moments. In general, a lot of the teen side characters weren't developed as much as they could have been. Still, the cast was very diverse in terms of sexuality and gender identity which was delightful, and I did cry a bit at the end. Overall a quick and charming novel.

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This was a good book. There is an important message (not about pregnancy in general; about people's attitudes, belonging and not belonging, stereotypes, prejudice, etc.) All good themes. I would say they were given justice.

So, why this less than stellar rating? I guess the book didn't hold my attention. It started out strong but it lost me in the middle. This is not so much of a critique of the book; in this case, I do think it's more about me.

What I'm trying to say is: I rate this book 3 stars for my personal enjoyment, but it feel it objectively deserves more. I do recommend it.

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I was really hoping for a great story, but there was such a focus on gender, that the actual story was lost. If it is really important, mention it once, maybe twice. This wasn't really a novel, more of a soap box for the author to state her thoughts on gender. There really just wasn't a whole lot of actual story to review.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Author: Eva Darrows
Publisher: Harlequin TEEN (US & Canada) and Inkyard Press
Publication Date: 30 Apr 2019

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This was surprisingly good! I didn't think I would love it since it does deal with sensitive topics like teen pregnancy but it was really good! the main character was really interesting and I love the approach the author took with her. Overall, I thought this was great and highly recommend!

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This was SO WONDERFUL. I cried. It’s funny and sweet and every single character is a precious angel snowflake I would die for.

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I was totally expecting Belly Up to be a heavy read, what with the teen pregnancy and all, but I was completely wrong. It's light and fun, and super positive (a little unrealistic, or maybe a romanticized story). The main characters are a little too good to be true, kinda lifetime movie-y, but in a good way. This isn't a story about how life is over when you get pregnant as a teen, but how it just changes things. And those changes can be good or they can be bad or they can just be changes. Some of the situations are glossed over, or spun super positively, but that's not a bad thing.
The book is hugely diverse, with a Gray Ace best friend (wifey), several POC, a transwoman, lesbians, and so on. Sara also makes a point to say that the assigned gender of her baby is [spoiler] female [\female] but that she'll leave the door open for the baby to decide later on.
Totally not a typical teen romance, but in a very good way.

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This book was breathtaking! Mistakes that lead to something wonderful! Thank you netgalley for the free arc in exchange for an honest review!

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This book was a lot of fun to read! I loved Sara's voice! This book was a honest telling of teen aged pregnancy, of some of the kinda gross things that happen, and the realities of her situation. I loved how she had the support of her mom and her best friend!

Sara was a fantastic narrator! If you enjoy the voice like in the synopsis above (there's another synopsis, but I like this one better) then you'll like this book. Then there's the fact that her mom's side of the family is Scandinavian, and her dad's side of the family is Latino. So she's torn between those two worlds while not fully belonging to either. Which isn't fun!

I really enjoyed Leaf and his friends who become Sara's friends. Yeah for diversity, because he's Roma, and his cultural treatment of food was an interesting part of this book. It wasn't all about her pregnancy! His reaction to her pregnancy and her reaction to his reaction made for great reading!

The relationships in this book were really great and realistic! Sara's with her mom, with her grandmother, with her best friend, with Leaf, with the baby's dad, yeah. They were a great base of this book, and I loved reading about them!

Loved reading this book and it was a really great book!

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Oh man I struggled with this one. It took me way longer to read than it should have, but I just never felt compelled to pick it up again once I put it down. I started off really liking it, but that took a quick turn. I love me a good food description in a book, but even I found it to be too much. I also found it to be very preachy. I don’t like feeling told off when reading, and I found myself feeling that way a LOT. I like the idea of the story, but I did not like this book, and that kills me a little. Maybe I was too old for this book.

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My first 5-star read of the year!

I stayed up way past my “bed time” to read Belly Up. The story was so honest, real, and raw. Let’s not forget hilarious. This book was filled with laugh out loud moments, the one liners and jokes had me going.

There is a little bit of all types of representation in Belly Up. At first, it felt like the author was just throwing in everything she could think of, like a smorgasbord of representation, with no real reason. I looked outside that, though, because it wasn’t about me . . . it’s about others seeing themselves in a character. With that said, you can find a bit of ace, trans (MTF), questioning bisexuality, demisexual, and queer in one or more of the main characters.

I hated Mormor at first, but the crazy bat grew on me. I loved the support of Sara’s family. I’m reading some reviews saying this is unrealistic. In some cases, it might be. However, I think it was realistic enough. Not all families bail on their teenaged daughter/granddaughter, etc. when she becomes pregnant. It’s refreshing to see the positive, instead of all the negative.

I’m indifferent with the Jack ending, but this is a personal thing of my own reasoning. I can’t say much about it without spoiling, so I’ll keep it at that.

Read it! You’ll laugh, you’ll throw a shoe, you’ll cry.

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I loved this book! Everything about it was amazing! It had sweet contemporary romance without characters having to be conflicted and angry at everyone for most of the story. It had rep galore in many fashions! It read like I was having conversations with my own best friends and didn't take itself anymore serious than it needed to be.

Belly Up is the story of how a reckless night at a party goes from fun to life changing. When Serendipity, Sara, has a drunken one night stand as way of rebounding from her ex she finds herself pregnant his with baby. The story goes through her figuring out the ups and downs of what her options are and the results of those decisions.

The writing is spot on and I loved the humor so much. Multiple times I was giggling out loud at something Sara or another character would say. The one liners in particular were incredible! I loved the sass both Sara's mom and Mormor (grandma) had throughout the story and how they were involved and included. Too often the adults in the teens life are glossed over in fiction and I'm glad they weren't in this. Even Sara's friends parents were mentioned and occasionally seen.

As for the representation, amazing! Darrows really packs diversity into this story and it all translates and works flawlessly for me. Not only do we have multiple sexual orientations represented but we have multiple religion and ethnicities as well. I greatly appreciate Darrows including variations of asexuality in her characters (gray ace and demisexual) and showing different diverse characters than we are use to seeing in other literature. The characters do a phenomenal explaining what and when things need to be explained without being rude or condescending about it. For example, I was completely engrossed when Sara was learning about Romani traditions and culture and the stories she was being told came naturally and the character was understanding of her ignorance instead of condescending about it. Another character starts her dialogue by telling Sara she is a trans queer girl and that if she has a problem with it then she can go find other people to talk to. The right to the point here is what's up attitude set the tone for her character and let you know what you needed without dwellig on the legistics of it. Other diverse characters are present and they all have their own way lf showing you who they are in a very natural and very them way. All of these aspects to these characters lets the reader connect to them in a much more intimate way than one may be use to.

Overall I think this is one of my new favorites and I wouldn't be surprised if it stays in my top 5 on the year. I can easily see myself rereading since Darrows does an incredible job of making the dialogue, both inner and outer, relatable. It's also just an overall wholesome read without unnecessary drama. It was kind of refreshing in way. If YA contemporaries are your forte, do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

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