I’ve been wanting to read this book ever since Netgalley approved me for it. What a great book, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It was heartwarming and emotional. The book focused on society and how others were put to the side, and they felt unseen, and unloved and then the family came together and loved one another.

There are multiple girls in this story, but the primary focus is on Adela, Simone, and Emory. The author shows how their lives intertwine and how their friendship blossoms into love but shows the heartbreak and betrayal between friends.

This story touched my heart in so many ways, as we went through the timeline of motherhood and how love and respect was shown. You’ll also see the mistreatment of young mothers and all the woes they’ll face as a mother.

Triggers:
Race
Sexuality
Religion
Education

Recommended Read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for providing me with an ARC.

An ode to the version of me I have yet to meet, and to the girl I once was, or still am I’m not sure. But, Lelia you are a gem that intricately intertwined the stories of three mismatched young women through the one thing that makes us and shapes, motherhood. Without divulging too many details, because this is a MUST read. This book spoke to the version of me that was, and often still is, scared to expose her insecurities/bear the parts of me that could shift people’s opinions of me. This book was not simply made for motherhood, but explores the beauty of womanhood from youth to the budding stages of adulthood, because who truly grows up?

Thank you to Netgalley, Lelia Mottley, and Alfred A. Knopf publisher for allowing me to read a copy of The Girls Who Grew Big. This was my first book by the author the title intrigued me. A teenage girl Adele gets pregnant she is forced to live with her grandparents in Florida. Adele meets a girl under similar situations and is immediately bonding. This book emphasizes the community aspect in helping each other succeed. I look forward to reading other books by this author.

It felt like such a privilege to be able to read about the Girls, and some parts of this book will stay with me forever. This was raw, beautiful, and just so human. These characters jumped off the page, and I felt like I was right there with them.

This book celebrates motherhood, women, and female friendships in such an incredible way- and women are pretty badass. I really loved it. So much.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC

This is a striking story of three teen moms crossing paths in a rural Florida beach town. Told from three different POVs you get to know these young women as they navigate motherhood, friendship, and relationship challenges. This book is more of a character-driven storyline, but it is so well-written the slower plot is still engaging.

One of my favorite reads of the past few years is Demon Copperhead, and this book gave me some of those same themes that I loved so dearly from that novel.

I want to thank NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for this advanced reader copy. In exchange for my honest feedback.

I loved the language of this one and the writing style. It really flowed. I did have a hard time enjoying some of the characters and their actions together. Adela really annoyed me as I found her arrogant and immature.. maybe that was the point though.

This book is a beautiful, moving story about young teen moms who bond together to help each other in a poor and forgotten area of Florida’s panhandle. Simone is the leader of the girls and lives in her red truck with her twins and teaches the other young moms how to breastfeed and care for their babies on their own.. Emory is a strong student who wants to finish highschool and go to a good college. She has a baby with Simone’s brother, Jaylin. And then there is Adela who is a competitive swimmer and has to put her plans on hold when she gets pregnant and gets sent to live in Florida until she has the baby and can give it up for adoption. We get the heartbreaking back story of each girl and the shame they face but also the resilience they show when faced with tough decisions and abandoned by their families because they have found themselves pregnant and unmarried. There are some conflicts between the girls
but ultimately they learn how much they need each other . The writing is beautiful, lyrical and it’s a deftly crafted story. You will instantly connect to these strong and determined girls and be rooting for them. I absolutely loved this! Give it all the stars!

Leila Mottley’s The Girls Who Grew Big is a stunning novel that pulses with urgency, tenderness, and raw emotional honesty. Centering the voices of young Black girls growing up in Florida, the book is a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a world that often tries to shrink you—and what it takes to grow anyway.

At its heart, this is a story of transformation. The novel begins carrying invisible weight: family trauma, fractured identity, systemic neglect. But through the course of the book, they don’t just grow in the literal sense—they expand emotionally, spiritually, and inwardly. Mottley writes their evolution with care and authenticity, never rushing their journeys or sanitizing their struggles. Their growth is hard-won and deeply human.

What makes this novel especially moving is the strength of its relationships. These girls are not just characters—they are sisters-in-spirit, bound by pain, joy, and shared resistance. Their friendship is the lifeblood of the story: complicated, protective, fierce. Mottley captures the texture of these bonds with incredible nuance—the arguments, the forgiveness, the moments of shared silence that speak louder than words. It’s a reminder that sisterhood can be salvation.

Mottley’s prose is poetic and visceral, full of imagery that sings with both beauty and ache. She doesn’t flinch from the realities these girls face—violence, poverty, being unseen—but she also imbues their story with light, possibility, and grace. There is depth in every line, and a beating heart behind every sentence.

What makes The Girls Who Grew Big so achingly relatable is its emotional core: the yearning to be seen, the hunger to belong, the fight to define oneself beyond what the world expects. Anyone who has ever felt too small or too invisible will find pieces of themselves in these pages. Mottley doesn't just tell us these girls are growing—she shows us how hard and brave it is to choose to grow when the world tells you not to.

Rating: 5/5
A breathtaking, soul-deep novel about girlhood, resilience, and radical becoming. The Girls Who Grew Big will break your heart and put it back together—wider, stronger, and more open than before.

This was a powerful and heartfelt novel about teen motherhood, identity, and the bonds of sisterhood.  When 16 year old Adela Woods is sent away from her home in Indiana to live with her grandmother in a small Florida town, she feels lost and alone.  But everything changes when she meets Emory, a teen mom who brings her baby to high school, and Simone, a young mother of twins who's unexpectedly pregnant again.  Together with a group of girls raising their kids out of the back of Simone's red truck, Adela discovers a found family and a fierce sense of belonging.
This author writes such emotionally charged stories with such care and kindness for her characters.  These girls are deeply flawed but incredibly strong. Their experiences are raw and real - I found myself completely immersed in their world.  Each of their stories is unique, yet they're all woven together through friendship, hardship, and love.  
This book doesn't shy away from the harsh realities young mothers face, byt it tells their stories in a beautiful, compassionate way.  It's also a celebration of sisterhood - the kids that carry you when everything else falls apart.  
This is a touching, hopeful read that reminds us how powerful connection and community can be.

The Girls Who Grew Big is about teenage pregnancy and motherhood. It is told through 3 POVs, Adela, Simone, and Emory. Adela is a student athlete, who is brought down to the Florida panhandle to live with her grandmother while she waits for the baby to be born. Emory is a senior in high school who is straddling being a new mother and finding her own happiness. Simone was a teenage mother of twins, who is the unspoken leader of The Girls, a group of teenage mothers in the small town of Padua. Adela, Simone and Emory all go through their own journey of motherhood and making hard decisions that impact their own happiness, child (unborn or born), and those around them.

Leila Mottley did an excellent job with this amazing story. I fell in love with each character and wanted to support each of them in their own way. I wanted Adela to grow up faster than she was because I was angry with her choices. I wanted Emory to pursue her dreams, and wanted to tell everyone around her to just let her go. And Simone. Simone just wanted the very best for her kids and wanted to feel love. This is definitely a heavy hitter and delivers emotional blows at times. I highly recommend this beautiful book and grateful that I was able to experience it. 5 out of 5.

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for the opportunity in exchange for an honest review.


I will be posting to socials.

The Girls Who Grew Big is told through the POV of 3 young women who are brought together through their pregnancies and motherhood. Simone is the unofficial leader, who imparts her wisdom onto younger mothers. Emory is a senior in high school intent on graduating who brings her infant to classes. Adela is pregnant and sent to Florida by her parents to essentially birth the baby and then return to school as if nothing has happened.

This story is beautifully written - I could immediately tell that this author is a POET. Beautiful imagery and prose. Furthermore, the subject matter definitely hits home for a lot of women - no matter if you are mothers, pregnant or neither. All of us can relate to these characters in some way.

This book is releasing at the end of June - a great book to take with you to the beach, dig your toes into the sand and feel as if you are right there in Padua Beach with the Girls, Simone’s pick-up truck right behind you.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the surprise relationships. I liked how the author told the story of the ups and downs of the girls as they became family.

Hands down one of my favorite reads of 2025! This book was so beautifully written and had me rooting for each character. I highly recommend this book to everyone!

3.75 stars. This was a powerful and emotional read that touches on the challenges of teenage motherhood, societal expectations versus personal agency, trauma, race, and the importance of community. Leila’s writing was really beautiful, and I’m excited to check out her debut novel, Nightcrawling!

At times, I found some of the characters’ choices and inner thoughts frustrating—but I had to remind myself that these were teenagers navigating life for the first time, faced with the difficult decisions that come with motherhood. As someone in my mid-twenties without children, I didn’t fully connect with the characters or the story on a personal level, but I still appreciated its depth and the important themes it explored. I believe many readers will find it both moving and impactful.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

Get ready for an emotional journey of young pregnant mothers growing up in the Florida Panhandle.
Whether they live there, or sent by a relative. These woman form emotional bonds and connection that are both raw and troublesome.
Thank you NG for the ARC.

This was a really interesting book--i selected based on the cover but was extremely invested in the story. Thanks so much for the gifted copy of this one!

The Girls Who Grew Big is the beautifully-crafted and extremely thought-provoking second novel by the acclaimed young author Leah Mottley. It will undoubtedly be one of the best books I will read this year, and I plan to re-read it. It's that good.

This is a book that I believe will hit every reader differently. On first glance, it's a fairly straightforward story about three teens ("the Girls" -- Simone, Emory and Adela) dealing with pregnancy and motherhood under very adverse circumstances and bonding over their shared struggles. The story is told from each young woman's viewpoint, in alternating chapters. Mottley's ability to create and interweave these three unique voices into one cohesive and very powerful narrative is stunning.

What struck me so profoundly throughout the book is that the Girls' physical and emotional struggles and misery, and their children's well-being would have been infinitely improved if the Girls had not been abandoned by their families and forced to deal with "their problem" alone. Only one adult is a hero in this book: Adela's grandmother Noni, who invites Adela to stay with her and provides much needed emotional support. Otherwise, every other parental figure in this book sends their child away to fend for herself physically and emotionally. Seeing how fiercely the teen moms love and protect their babies, I keep wondering how their parents, and especially their mothers, could turn away so blithely from their daughters and grandchildren.

Yes, the Girls' story is ultimately uplifting, as they become stronger by helping each other, and learn to survive and perhaps even thrive. But I finished the book feeling angry that they had to endure so much, so needlessly.

Thank you very much to the Publisher and NetGalley for gracing me with an ARC of this book to read and review.

Thank you @netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy of The Girls Who Grew Big by @leilamottley A pregnant teenager is sent to Florida to live with her grandmother until she gives birth and gives up her baby for adoption. I liked the strong female friendships and female empowerment. But the girls are young and they make some bad decisions, which I wasn’t a fan of. Thanks to @booktalketc for the recommendation! #thegirlswhogrewbig #leilamottley #bookstagram #netgalley #advancedreadercopy #lovetoread📚 #takeapagefrommybook

A fierce, tender portrait of girlhood and motherhood colliding.

Leila Mottley’s writing is lyrical and grounded, and her characters, especially the Girls, are unforgettable. Their story isn’t sugar-coated, but it’s full of humanity, connection, and truth. I appreciated how the novel explores consequence without judgment and centers the kind of found family that makes survival possible.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

The Girls Who Grew Big is a poignant and inspiring story of resilience, growth, and the fierce determination of children navigating the responsibility of raising their own siblings. While a few plot points didn’t fully resonate with me personally, I can still appreciate the author’s bold artistic choices. The prose reads like a painting rendered in words rich, expressive, and emotionally layered. This is a story that lingers with you, both for its subject matter and its unique voice.