Unpregnant

Hendriks, Jenni and Ted Caplan. Unpregnant. 2019. 310p. ISBN 9780062876249. Available at FIC HEN on the library shelves.

Veronica Clarke is the ideal student. Every parent would love her as a daughter. She's smart. She's attractive. She will be her high school valedictorian in a few months, and she's already been accepted at Brown University. Veronica is going places! At seventeen, her whole life is in front of her... aside from the positive sign on her pregnancy stick. This revelation throws her life's biggest wrench. Her sister got pregnant her first year of nursing school, and five children later she hasn't completed her degree and is expecting another one. Veronica does not want that future. In a panic, Veronica drops the pregnancy test, and it skitters on the floor out of her bathroom stall, only to be picked up by Bailey Buttler. 

Bailey is the school's rebel. Rumors are she threatened the whole football team with bodily harm. She carries a large knife with her. She does drugs and smokes. No one dares to sit with her in the cafeteria. Bailey is angry, and loves to take it out on others. Worse, Bailey and Veronica used to be best friends until high school, when Veronica realized that Bailey would only hold her back in her social climb. Armed with the pregnancy test, Bailey could literally end Veronica's reputation in a few words.

Instead, Bailey walks away. Veronica needs an out from this pregnancy, so she begins preparing a trip to Albuquerque, the closest clinic to Missouri where an underage girl can obtain an abortion without parental permission. Her plan is simple. Her friends always schedule cram weekend at a lakehouse. This year, instead of going, she will claim that she's spending time with her boyfriend Kevin, and he will drive her to New Mexico 900 miles away. She will then be back home before the weekend is over.

The first part works just fine. Her friends drop her off at a fancy restaurant where she meets Kevin. But when she begins to tell him of her plan, he gets on his knee and asks her to marry him, that he will always support her and their child. Confused, she questions her boyfriend on how he possibly would know. Did Bailey spread this news? Turns out Kevin sabotaged the condom and intentionally caused her pregnancy. Fuming, Veronica abandons Kevin and turns to her only hope, the only other girl who knows her situation, Bailey. It takes some convincing, but Bailey agrees to drive her to Albuquerque on one condition. They will stop by Roswell and Area 51 on the way back. Veronica agrees, and both of them take off.

What follows is a mad capper where Bailey and Veronica find each other again and examine their biggest fears. Over the course of two days, the girls will grow and learn that perhaps they had both undersold the other. Fans of heavy topics wrapped in hilarity (think Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) will appreciate Veronica and Bailey's mad ride down and back!

Crows & Cards

Helgerson, Joseph. Crows & Cards. 2009. 348p. ISBN 9780618883950. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

In the 1830s on the bank of the Mississippi, Zebulon Crabtree is old enough to leave home and find himself a trade. At least, his parents think so. With many mouths to feed at home, they believe it’s time for the boy to go make something of himself. And since he’s afraid of water, of heights, of splinters, and of just about anything, Zeb is turning down every idea his father throws at him. Which is why Zeb finds himself on a riverboat on the Mississippi River heading south to St. Louis where he will be an apprentice to his uncle, who is a tanner. Being allergic to fur is just too bad for him.

Zeb doesn’t plan on following through with his parents’ plan, however. On board the boat he meets Chilly, a pure gentleman of the South. Hearing of Zeb’s unfortunate destiny, Chilly offers to take Zeb up as an apprentice in exchange for the $70 he was supposed to give to his uncle. Chilly is a gambler extraordinaire, and he tells Zeb he can introduce him to the life of the Brotherhood, a group that takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor orphans. Of course, none of that is true, but Zeb is enough of a rube to fall for it.

Soon Zeb finds himself the unwitting accomplice of a man bent on fleecing most of St. Louis in his gambling den. Zeb runs a telegraph, a wire that tells Chilly the cards his opponent has so that he can make the appropriate bets. But in this sea of denizens, Zeb also meets a slave cook who looks out for him, and old professor versed in the art of cheating, a con artist running a medicine show, as well as an ancient Indian chief and his pretty princess daughter. Though blind, the old man can see through the spirits, and Chilly is more than eager to try to win the gold crown he received from the King of Prussia. Zeb’s ride through St. Louis will be a memorable one!