Girls in Trouble : A Novel

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Summary: A book that will make everyone start talking about adoption!
Review: I'm a longtime fan of Caroline Leavitt's books. Girls in Trouble gave me much to think about--who's the mother--the woman who adopted her and loves her with all her being, or is it the girl-now-woman who gave birth to her? It's timely, intriguingly presented, and filled with characters who will test your heart. In fact, it was so intriquing I had to read it twice. A good book for girls of adolescent age and any age woman. A great pick for a reading group. Bravo, Caroline.

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Summary: A Compulsive Read That is Real and True
Review: GIRLS IN TROUBLE has numerous strengths and some weaknesses, but from the moment I began reading I thought, "This would make a great movie; boy, this would be a terrific movie." Given the fact that Leavitt has had books optioned for the screen before (all the way to the script being written), I don't think she wrote GIRLS IN TROUBLE with the goal of seeing it filmed; I think the movie-ready feel of the book is because her characters are so vivid and fully realized that they practically walk out of the pages.

Sixteen-year-old Sara Rothman refuses to acknowledge her pregnancy until she's well past the stage of having any option besides giving birth. Her slightly seedy boyfriend is on the lam, her starchy parents are horrified that their honor-student daughter has strayed from the college path, and the only people who radiate approval are Eva and George Rivers, the would-be birth parents. Before long, Sara has practically relocated to Eva and George's warm, comfortable, open lifestyle, in which she --- the birth mother --- has a starring role. Feted with delicious food, little comforts and plenty of verbal encouragement, Sara seems to be living in a fairy tale for unwed mothers.

Leavitt, of course, is too savvy a storyteller to allow the fairy tale to progress much further without a foray into the big, dark scary forest. Stung by rejection when the Rivers become preoccupied with new baby Anne, Sara exercises the kind of bad judgment people make when they're truly lonely (no spoiler here; besides, it isn't hard to guess what Sara might do). Leavitt is a microsurgeon of the choices we make that determine our lives' paths; the adult Sara, older Eva and adolescent Anne all square with the characters we met earlier in the novel.

In part, that is due to Leavitt's intimate knowledge of her subject: she wrote an essay for Salon called "Dating the Birth Mother," about her and writer/husband Jeff Tamarkin's forays into open adoption. While the couple ultimately chose to forego adopting a child, Leavitt found herself fascinated by the teenagers she spoke to and created the character of Sara: "And the more I talked to these girls, the more I began to feel that some of them yearned for something more than just a good home for their babies. They yearned for me. They wanted to be a part of my family because here was the one place where they were getting approval, where they could be sixteen and wrest back a bit of that sixteen-year-old life without even a hint of disapproval," she wrote for Powells.com.

From that yearning, Leavitt has created a novel that is as compulsively readable as a can of Pringles is snackable --- but unlike the Pringles, filled with substance. In the middle, perhaps, is a bit of airy filler; as in her previous book, COMING BACK TO ME, Leavitt runs into a spot of trouble trying to transcribe the passage of time (in that book it was while the protagonist lay in a hospital bed that the action wavered). Perhaps that's because, like her readers, she is eager to get back to the meat of the story, the back-and-forth, the tug-of-war, the push-me, pull-you of parenting in all its stages and guises. In that eagerness, too many loose ends get tied up too neatly, too quickly.

However, no matter what its flaws, this book is real and true. When so many books published now are technically adequate but soulless, that should count for a great deal. Maybe a movie deal?

--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

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Summary: Read this book!!!
Review: Girls in Trouble was one of the best, most engrossing novels I have read in a while. The pain felt by both Sara and Eva and George is so real I could feel a heavyness in my chest while I read this book (even sneaking a quick page or two at work). Several parts broke my heart, but it was a pretty real idea book. Not much sugar coating. The only think I sort of secretly wished was for Sara to have been able to gotten back together....call me a hopeless romantic fool. R

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Summary: A truly wonderful read
Review: I loved this book. I started it and immediatly got sucked in. The story is so raw and beautifully written. I could not stand putting the book down. Caroline Leavitt knows how to write about a touchy issue with great knowledge and care. The characters are so rich and full of depth. There are no winners or losers in the book. It is easy to identify and support each character in the choices that they make, even if the choices are not easy or what would be deemed by some as the right choices to make. "Girls in Trouble" is wonderful, and I wish the story never ended. It is a beautiful read. Flawless.

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Summary: Girls In Trouble
Review: I read Caroline Leavitt's poignant story of a teenager's choice to give up her baby. The consequent anguish and reversals of heart that are played out between all those who participate in this "open adoption" are portrayed with subtle skill. Caroline Leavitt can shatter us; she can draw us into a place full of pain but her fictional world is also glowing with an alternate tenderness. With the softest of authorial voices she conveys a collision of moral, psychologial, and human values and keeps us emotionally satisfied by weaving a good story.
This is a special book. And its humility is as real and deep as the characters who move across its pages. A compelling, thoughtful book which manages to engage and entertain as it also informs.

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Summary: Girls in Trouble Review
Review: Girls in Trouble is a wonderful page-turner that will leave anyone second-guessing an open adoption decision. Leavitt has created a Darwinian struggle between her characters' good intentions and feelings for one baby. It is a great read that allows the reader to dismiss the character inconsistencies and dive into the story.

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Summary: Emotional and Awesome!
Review: I am usually the type to read the silly 20-30ish female drama fictions however I found this book at my library. It's definantly different than the others that I read.

I loved it. It was very easy reading and an emotional roller coaster.

I sat up many nights telling my husband, "I'll turn the light off after this chapter" and wound up reading a few more because I couldn't put it down.

Now that I finished it, I can't wait to try other books by this Author.

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Summary: Girls in Trouble will break your heart
Review:

The drama in Caroline Leavitt's Girls in Trouble erupts in the first line, plunging us into her heartbreaking story as we meet Sara, a teenager in the throes of labor. Leavitt never shies in her treatment of this difficult subject---the conflicted feelings and sometimes sticky relationships between birth mothers and adoptive parents, and the idea that when a child is born the ripples she creates move into the world at times in tidal waves, at others in tremors. But the tremors remain to forever influence those involved. Through her rich, radiant prose Caroline Leavitt takes us on a journey, as the best novels do, to the center of the human heart. She has created dynamic, flawed characters-parents Jack and Abby, birth parents Eva and George, boyfriend Danny, Sara and daughter Anne--and through these deft portrayals illuminates both the soul and shadow side of family ties. Reading this book I entered the lives of people in crisis, of a sixteen-year-old girl trying to unravel the complex world of adolescence, motherhood, and family. I emerged understanding family a little more, thinking, yes-this is how we are. Girls in Trouble reflects our lives in the deepest way.



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Summary: the best book I've read all year
Review: I felt as though this book was written about me, that Sara could have been my voice. Thirteen years ago, I was in my first year of Columbia when I got pregnant and Sara's journey was mine. I waited too long so adoption was the only recourse. I gave my baby to a family I thought was going to support me, and while they didn't move away as Sara's adoptive family did, they did cut me off, and the adoption agency wasn't much help, nor were all the people telling me to just move on and forget about it. And years later, I took my vacation time at my job and my savings and I did find my baby--who is no baby but a twenty year old college student. I loved, loved, loved this book and I got totally lost in the characters and the beautiful writing. I truly think it should be required reading for all kids, and all adults even thinking of adopting.

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Summary: Girls In Trouble -
Review: GIRLS IN TROUBLE broke my heart - and then filled the crack it left with compassion. Having never entered into the adoption process, but having three youngs daughers of my own, I found myself completely engrossed with Caroline Leavitt's vivid and deeply profound story of a young girl faced with the most agonizing choice a woman can ever make - whether to keep her unplanned baby, or bring it into the world - and into the arms of another mother. So griddy and real are Sara's emotions here, that at times I had to peel my eyes off the page and look around - reminding myself that this story was not about me after all, but a fictional character.

Or is it? Now, when I look around and see teenage girls - working at the mall... stopped at a stop light next to me... I wonder. Is that Sara? Is that another girl in trouble?

I am a fericious reader, and I rarely write on-line reviews. But after reading GIRLS IN TROUBLE, I wanted to learn more about the author Caroline Leavitt and her work. Although this is a work of fiction, it is so clearly married to reality that it not only hooks the reader, but makes her squirm, cry and fall to her knees with gratitude that love, eventually, does heal. And it is not just Sara's story that does this (perhaps this is what makes this book go from good to great somewhere around the middle of it), it is also the adoptive mother's as well. Caroline Leavitt has managed to make Eva both antagonist and heroine - simultaneously - a skill that only a master writer can accomplish. I found myself rooting for Anne's contempt towards her adoptive mother on one page, and aching for Anne to choose Eva out of love on the next.

In the end, Caroline Leavitt gives her characters the only conclusion big enough for them: honor. Eva, Sara, and Anne, each in their own way, sacrifice a piece of themselves for one another. And it is ultimately this compassion the fills the cracks in all three of their borken hearts (on second thought, make that four, along with mine). I can't wait to see this novel come to life on screen, small or big. In a world of chick-lit and cookie-cut crime fictions, GIRLS IN TROUBLE can run - but it can't hide. Just like ABOUT A BOY or FORREST GUMP - literary treasures that arrive first in the form of a novel, GIRLS IN TROUBLE has the tension and depth, the giant soul, to be transformed into a moive. And I, for one, can't wait.