Named to Kirkus Review articles’ Best Books of 2014

July 24

My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn’t desire to meet me once i was created because my mom was unmarried, and for that reason surviving in sin. My mom has explained the storyplot many, many, MANY, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with me, her mother beat her. Defeat HER! She was twenty-five. That story may be the basis of my intimate education and offers reiterated why it is important to wait about Gabi, A Girl in Items until you’re wedded to give it up. So now, each time I day a man, my mother says, ‘Ojos abiertos, piernas cerradas.’ Eye open, legs closed. That’s so far as the birds as well as the bees chat has gone. And I don’t mind it. I don’t always trust that whole wait around until you’re married crap, though. After all, this is America and the 21st century; not Mexico one hundred years ago. But, obviously, I can’t tell my mom that because she will think I’m bad. Or even worse: trying to be White.

Gabi Hernandez chronicles her this past year in senior high school in her diary: Cindy’s being pregnant, Sebastian’s coming out, the cute males, her father’s meth habit, and the meals she craves. And on top of that, the poetry that assists forge her identification.

Carries a PDF of Gabi’s ‘Zine.