Book Review: Girls on the Verge by Sharon Biggs Waller

Girls on the Verge
by Sharon Biggs Waller [YA Waller]

Girls on the Verge is a short novel about three teens on a road trip to find abortion pills. Though the book was released in April 2019, it’s technically historical fiction set in 2014 in order to accurately represent the details of finding abortion care in Texas at that point in time. Anyone who glances at the news knows this is a quickly changing situation.

The “present time” road trip is the main narrative, but we get brief flashback chapters about how the main character, Camille, became pregnant and how she was treated when trying to buy a pregnancy test and obtain an abortion where she lived. There’s tension between the two friends taking the trip with her. Bea has been Camille’s best friend forever, but Bea comes from a family that’s against sex education for religious reasons and she has reservations about going on an abortion trip herself. Annabelle is a new friend from the theater program Camille and Bea were in, and she’s the one supplying the car.

This is a well-crafted and contemporary-feel book about the experiences of many young women. From the safety of reading about it in a book, readers will see what it’s like to visit an anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center,” what it’s like to visit Planned Parenthood, and what it’s like to take pills for a medical abortion. Teens will learn where to go in real life to find information on obtaining an abortion if it’s difficult or illegal where they live, which may lead to this becoming a banned book as abortion restrictions spread.

I would recommend this Girls on the Verge strongly to all high school and college teens (young men need to understand this stuff too), but also to adults who want to understand the some of the story behind the politics in the news. It’s probably too explicit for most middle school teens, but that will be up to those readers and families to decide.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Exit, Pursued by a Bear, by E.K. Johnston.]

[ publisher’s official Girls on the Verge web page ] | [ official Sharon Biggs Waller web site ]

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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