I have yet to meet a Leila Mottley book I don’t like.

This book really put me through it. I felt so many emotions going on this journey with these girls. Although there’s much to experience in the plot of this book, it’s the small singular moments that Leila Mottley does so well that literally had me crying.

These girls’ journey to motherhood ain’t no walk in the park. With the world against them, they really did what they had to do. Also, the way this book depicts life in a rural small town is quite eye opening.

I swear, Leila Mottley is such a gem, bro.

took me a little bit to get into this story because of the grammar and dialect, but it was intentional based on the main characters. i really loved this story, and the author did an exceptional job portraying the struggles of teen motherhood. so well done!

The Girls Who Grew Big felt new, different, hard, and overall, powerful. In Padua, Florida, a small, podunk beach town, a small group of adolescent mothers has bonded and banded together to create a village for their children. Included are Padua natives, Simone and Emory, joined by Adela, a transplant in every way.

This book challenges the idea of what it means to be a teenaged mother, including how society treats them. It reminds us that, not too many years ago, teenaged mothers were the norm—entirely capable of loving, nurturing and growing children into healthy adults. And it reminds us that, women, against all odds, will always find a way to persevere and protect their children.

This book is hard and sad. The stories of each you no woman include tragedy and isolation, as their families and loved ones reject them in the face of young motherhood. Their relationships with men are complicated, as they usually are at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Same as the relationships with each other: loving, codependent, occasionally toxic. Their choices often don’t feel like choices at all, but predestined hardship (I felt this way as Simone struggled to obtain an abortion for her third child). And somehow, it all weaves together beautifully.

I was moved by this story, in the same way this author’s first book moved me. Highly recommended. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As a teen mom myself I was looking forward to this one! It was an easy read for the most part. Switching between the 3 young moms & their experience with teen pregnancy/motherhood. I did feel like the relationships in the book felt forced & the second half dragged a bit. Overall a pretty good read!

3.5 🌟

This was a gorgeous, heart wrenching read. Just the embodiment of girlhood. It made me yearn for my own future children more than ever, and made me think of the first years of my own life, when it was just me and my mother in one bed, watching rented DVDs and eating chocolate bars. We were so young. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how she did on her own when she was so, so young. What strength she carries within herself.

This book follows three extraordinary, well developed, complicated young women who are just trying their best to live and make a life for their babies. It asks the question of how far can you really fly if everyone around you believes you don’t have wings to begin with — and are trying their damndest to convince to believe it, too. That you’re a flightless bird, stuck wherever you were unlucky enough to be born. And there’s a little baby in your arms that’s both a burden and a blessing, something that frees you and weight you down at the same time.

In the name of honesty, I’ll also mention some aspects that didn’t agree with me personally. The writing style, for example. I really admire the way that the author tried to be true to how she thought Emory and Simone would really talk and think, but I’d have to reread parts of their chapters over and over to understand what was being said. Some of the metaphors and similes were also too over-wrought for my taste — very flowery, very purple prose-esque.

I didn’t 100% connect in the way I wanted to any of the characters. (Except Noni. She was my favorite.) But the girls kept making mistake after mistake and not really learning, not trying to do better until the very end of the book — or their attempts to do better just made it worse. Their decisions simply flabbergasted me, both past and present. They went against reason over and over, leading with their hearts and their desires to feel loved — and while I understand this feeling completely, it also got tiring.

This was a beautiful portrayal of the fallibility of womanhood, girlhood, human-hood…but it also frustrated me. As I’m trying to write reviews with 100% honesty, sometimes this book made me feel more annoyance and pity than empathy. Example (MILD SPOILER AHEAD!!!!): when Emory revealed she got pregnant with Kai on purpose because she stopped taking her birth control. Like…girl. You are fifteen. How did it never occur to you that having a baby ten years before your frontal lobe develops might be an iffy idea? Or Adela’s lies, the way Adela uses people and doesn’t think about the consequences. The way Simone loses her temper.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I was very impressed by Leila Mottley's debut novel, Nightcrawling, so when I received an invitation to read and review her new novel, I was quite interested to see where she would go next. In The Girls Who Grew Big, Mottley takes her readers to the opposite side of the country, the tiny town of Padua Beach, Florida, and introduces them to three young women all dealing with pregnancy. Simone, the oldest, is already the mother to 4-year-old twins, who she is raising in a red pickup truck after being kicked out by her parents and has recently discovered she is pregnant again by the twins' father. Emory is a high school senior with a 9-month-old son who is realizing that having a baby has not brought her life the meaning she thought it would. Adela is 16 and has been sent to live with her grandmother until she gives birth because of her parents' shame. These three are among the girls and young women who have come together to support each other in the middle of community that judges them but also offers them little to no help.

My thoughts on this novel are conflicted. On the one hand, the writing is powerful, and Mottley shows that her debut was not a fluke. On the other hand, I didn't understand how Simone, for instance, was able to make ends meet (she's living in a truck, but somehow still manages to party with her group?). I also often found myself exasperated with these three young women and the poor choices they repeatedly made -- though I also have to wonder if that wasn't the author's point. They are, after all, still children and are being forced into very adult decisions and responsibilities, and I suppose I was judging them as much as the adults in their lives were. Perhaps Mottley is asking us to suspend our disbelief in these particular characters a bit to see the bigger picture: that girls and women who find themselves pregnant often have few, if any, options and are often shamed by others no matter what decisions they make.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published June 24, 2025.

This book grabbed my interest from the first paragraph. The author wrote the story in such a beautiful way - I was invested in what happened to each of the Girls and cheering for them. As someone who was born and raised in the South, I truly loved the Southern dialect and found myself reading the book with a Southern accent.

It broke my heart that the majority of the Girls in the story were shunned by their families or were offered little to no support. They found their support from a group of Girls who are just like them - young moms. Reading how they helped empower one another was beautiful and brought me to tears several times. I was left wanting to know more about what happened to each of the Girls.

I really related with the book and wish I would have had the support these Girls found.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor Publishing for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book.

I can’t believe that Leila Mottley is as young as she is…truly incredible writing. I loved reading about Simone, Emory & Adela. Although they are all young mothers, their stories are all unique. Loved this book so much.

Ms. Mottley is coming. She is young and talented and moving like a high speed train toward literary stardom. Although, I don’t love the title, I do love the book. Ms. Mottley takes an unflinching and unforgettable look at teen pregnancy, stripping away any glamour that may exist in someone’s(especially teens)mind. The feel of this novel is authentic and the struggles of these youngsters is real. Ms. Motley’s writing compels your focus, the prose often youth-tinged philosophical that is heartfelt and often cheer-inducing. Ms. Mottley still struggles with writing fully drawn male characters, but she did much better here, than she did in NIGHTCRAWLING. I’m going to skip plot point discussions and go right to the recommendation. Get it! Read it! Ms. Mottley is coming, becoming! Thank You to Netgalley and Knopf for an advanced DRC. Book drops June 24, 2025.

I enjoyed this story. Though I’ couldn’t personally relate to The Girls, I’m sure there are plenty of others who can. The story was easy to follow along and I like that it was written in chapters told from the perspective of a different girl.

“She would never know a love as pure as the one I had for my babies, a love that began and ended the way oceans did: nowhere and everywhere, a thrashing constant.”

oh wow. this book was an experience. i went into it not expecting to be so deeply moved, but by the time i turned the last page, i felt like i had lived through every moment with Simone, Emory, and Adela. their journey as pregnant teens wasn’t just a story; it was a raw, honest reflection of resilience, love, and the complexities of friendship.

what i love most was the way their bond carried them through. even when conflicts arose; whether from personal struggles or the harsh judgment of the world, they remained each other’s safe space. their friendship wasn’t perfect, but it was real, and that made it even more powerful. they navigated their circumstances with a quiet strength, proving that sometimes, having people who truly understand you is enough to keep going. 🥺

this book isn’t just about teenage pregnancy; it’s about girlhood, womanhood, and the unspoken ways women hold each other up through life’s toughest moments. it was immersive, emotional, and left me reflecting on the ways we define family and support. if you’re looking for a book that explores these themes with depth and authenticity, totally recommend this. 😮‍💨

Thank you to NetGalley and ‎Knopf for the early read in exchange for my honest review.

The story follows a group of young mothers who create a supportive community while navigating the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting without any help from their families. The story centers on three main characters—Adela, Emory, and Simone—and is structured around the trimesters of their pregnancies. As they face societal judgment, they find strength in their friendship while tackling the complexities of young womanhood.

The book tackles heavy themes like self-identity, societal expectations, and the search for acceptance, highlighting the pressures young mothers endure. Mottley also explores how a mother is willing to give up everything for her child, learning from mistakes, growing, and striving to be better for them. While I couldn’t relate to the characters or their individual stories, I enjoyed stepping outside my comfort zone to explore these diverse perspectives.

Witnessing how The Girls created a life for themselves with each other's support was inspiring. The portrayal of friendship during tough times served as a powerful reminder of the importance of community. I also loved how the author captured each character's voice, making sure they sounded their age—something that’s often overlooked in other books.

I’m giving this book a 4-star rating because, while it was beautifully written and effectively captured the characters' raw emotions, the timeline was confusing; what felt like days often turned out to be weeks, while what seemed like months was just a couple of days. This inconsistency made it difficult to fully engage with the narrative.

QUOTES I LOVED
"You can't predict what's gonna happen, Adela but you can take a good look at yourself and be honest bout who you are and what you want."
"Truth is, always gonna be somebody in this world who like how you look and somebody that don't and neither of 'em gonna change nothin' about who you is."

First things first, Leila’s writing has me awed beyond words. She writes with such emotion and depth and each character was so complex and their voices were never lost, even with it being multi pov.

I’m just in awe. Leila is only 23 years old and I just can’t wrap my head around how someone has such a gift for writing like this. The world is a better place because of her voice and her writing.

The Girls Who Grew Big follows the lives of three girls, Simone, Emory and Adela, in a nowhere town in Florida.

Simone, a teen mom of twins who is helping other teen moms find their footing as mothers, despite being lost herself.

Emory, a teen mom who has dreams graduating high school and coming to school, despite being a young mother.

Adela, who had everything going for her, scholarships, a path to the olympics, until she became pregnant and her family shipped her down to grandmother’s to have the baby away from their prestigious town so as not to sully their name.

Leila’s writing perfectly captures the teens youthful innocence while also highlights the struggles of growing up too soon. My biggest takeaway from the story is that despite everything, women will always look out for each other. Even when the truth is ugly, when life is hard, women will be there to uplift you, to keep you from falling apart. They support you and cheer you on, to push you to be better.

This is only Liela’s second novel and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
The Girls Who Grew Big is available June 24th

Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

'The Girls Who Grew Big' by Leila Mottley chronicles the journey of some half dozen plus 'girls' who formed their own community of support as they went through pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing with little to no support from their blood families. Three of the girls' (Simone, Emory and Adela) journeys are chronicled in detail and the story is broken into the trimesters of pregnancy. As the girls become a self-made unit of support their lives tangle inextricably. The novel didn't draw me in as much as I thought it would. The voice of the girls is probably true to their age, station in life and current circumstance but at times I found it difficult to understand what they really meant or how they were advancing the story. The ending wasn't what I expected on a superficial level but in hindsight was certainly predictable given the thread of the story. In summary, the theme of the story is one that is at odds with the way most of us think but was expressed very well by Adela when she said ' Sometimes a dream isn't worth the life you lose on the journey there. Sometimes a dream is not meant for waking hours.' That is quite a testament to the level of maturity at least some of these girls reached while understanding they still remained very much young adult girl humans. I would like to thank Alfred A. Knopf Publishers and Netgalley for getting an ARC in my hands. I would give this read four stars and I do recommend it for all ages from late teenage through adulthood.

THE GIRLS is about the ways in which people cast judgement on teenage girls, specifically young black girls - the belittling of who they are, what their lives must be like and what their potentials must be.

As told from the POV of 3 such teenage girls, one of whom similarly cast those judgements herself thinking herself above and beyond them actually becomes one of them, one of the "Girls." Contributing to this sense of nobody-ness, they live tucked away in a small town in Florida, where the whole of the town doesn't seem to have any big dreams beyond the boundaries of their state. But keeping the girls down are the families, and supposed loved ones who should be providing support, who see a young pregnant girl as a having done something to deserve it.

Mottley also explores that ways in a mother will give up everything for their child, wandering through mistakes, learning from them, and inevitably growing, learning how to become better in order to be better for them.

I loved NIGHTCRAWLING so much, so am glad to report that I think I actually loved THE GIRLS even more. So much love for Mottley and can't wait to read what's next.

The Girls Who Grew Big wrecked me in the most beautiful way. I fell in love with this book—hard. I cried, I laughed, and most of all, I felt. Leila Mottley doesn’t just tell a story, she pulls it from you, like it’s been waiting inside all along.

The way she writes about girlhood, pregnancy, babies, and love—it’s so raw and real, I felt it in my body. In my motherhood. In the fierce, boundless love I have for my child. These girls and their stories cracked something open in me, and I’m still sitting in the pieces, grateful. This book is gorgeous and painful and so fucking beautiful. It’ll stay with me for a long, long time.

Beautiful, timely, honest, powerful. The Girls Who Grew Big is a reckoning with society’s view of motherhood and specifically teen moms. It is also an eye opening depiction of small town life and those left behind or forgotten. Leila Mottley is officially an auto-buy author for me. And at only 23 years old, I am sure there is a lot more to come.

I really wanted to love this story - the premise of teenage mothers navigating the realm of motherhood together really intrigued me being a newer mother myself (and also a Post Partum/Pediatric nurse who regularly sees younger mothers). I had hoped that this would be this heartwarming story of mothers overcoming all odds while still detailing the perils of motherhood....but I felt like the execution and language wasn't for me. The unique perspective of three different mothers really added depth to the story, but I found that one of the POVs was a little too "raw," almost bordering on crude. All three mothers are flawed in their own ways and the author does a fantastic job of really pulling at heart strings to tell their challenges each day. Others seem to have really enjoyed the language and portrayals of these young mothers but it just wasn't for me!

A coming of age tale and yet not at the same time. Teen mothers who are all forced to mature and grow for their children while still figuring out what they want for themselves. It was so well written while also being easy to read. An amazing story and message

This book had a bit of a slow start for me. Up until the halfway point, I wasn’t sure this book was for me. But then the story took a turn that caught me by surprise, and then I was hooked! This is a powerful story about motherhood, and womanhood in general. Add this to your TBR - I expect to see this book all over bookstagram once it is released.