Named to Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2014Named to School Library Journal Best Books of 2014Gabi Hernandez chronicles her last year in high school in her diary: college applications, Cindy\'s pregnancy, Sebastian\'s coming out, the cute boys, her father\'s meth habit, and the food she craves.
And best of all, the poetry that helps forge her identity.
July 24My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn\'t want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore l.
Named to Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2014Named to School Library Journal Best Books of 2014Gabi Hernandez chronicles her last year in high school in her diary: college applications, Cindy\'s pregnancy, Sebastian\'s coming out, the cute boys, her father\'s meth habit, and the food she craves.
Her work can be found in The Normal School, Huizache, The Acentos Review, As/Us Journal, The James Franco Review, and other publications.
Isabel also writes poetry and essays.
In addition to Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, she has also written a chapter book series for young readers, Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.), a non-fiction YA graphic biography, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications, 2018), which received the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, and most recently, a picture book, My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila, 2019).
She is also the daughter of Mexican immigrants.
Or worse: trying to be White.
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer from the Inland Empire of Southern California.
But, of course, I can\'t tell my mom that because she will think I\'m bad.
I mean, this is America and the 21st century; not Mexico one hundred years ago.
I don\'t necessarily agree with that whole wait until you\'re married crap, though.
And I don\'t mind it.
That\'s as far as the birds and the bees talk has gone.
Eyes open, legs closed.
So now, every time I go out with a guy, my mom says, Ojos abiertos, piernas cerradas.
That story is the basis of my sexual education and has reiterated why it\'s important to wait until you\'re married to give it up.
BEAT HER She was twenty-five.
My mom has told me the story many, many, MANY, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with me, her mother beat her.
And best of all, the poetry that helps forge her identity.
July 24My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn\'t want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore living in sin.
Named to Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2014Named to School Library Journal Best Books of 2014Gabi Hernandez chronicles her last year in high school in her diary: college applications, Cindy\'s pregnancy, Sebastian\'s coming out, the cute boys, her father\'s meth habit, and the food she craves
