Leila Mottley writes books about women who she thinks are being ignored as they weather tough circumstances in a contemporary world.

In her second novel, THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG (which follows her heartbreaking debut, NIGHTCRAWLING), Mottley takes readers on a tour of the rundown Florida Panhandle, the forgotten beachside town of Padua, and the teen mothers who find a way to balance their babies and their hardscrabble existence with the joy of being young. She sees the girls in all their dimensions, not just as the ones who “grew big” but as the ones who dream big despite the reality.

THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG is narrated in individual chapters from the perspectives of different girls. It is a choice that makes even more apparent how awesomely unique and interesting each young woman is.

"THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG will take a vaulted place on your bookshelf for the rest of your days. Even on a second read, you will find it hard to put down."

Adela Woods is 16 and pregnant. She is sent to Florida from an upper-class upbringing in Indiana to live with her grandmother as she prepares for her baby and attends high school as a junior. She first meets Emory, the one girl in the school who bothers to befriend her. Emory brings her newborn to school with her, breastfeeds in the principal’s office, and valiantly continues her studies, staying at the top of her class.

Then Adela gets acquainted with the others. Simone, a poetic speaker with twins who weighs the possibility of an abortion when she finds herself pregnant again at 20, is the erstwhile leader of the Girls. They have banded together to help each other raise their babies, living out of the back of Simone’s red pickup. When Adela becomes privy to the ways in which they support each other, she locks in hard with the group --- against the wishes of her religious grandparents, who have nothing but disdain for the Girls.

The youthful exhilaration of watching these babies grow up, the chance to do better than their parents did regardless of the circumstances, the love that grows between the Girls, and the everyday concerns --- like boys, hygiene, and aspirations of greater experiences beyond Padua --- make THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG a winning, honest and charming but hard-edged look at their lives.

However, with Mottley’s remarkable linguistic ability, pitch-perfect dialogue and impressive characterization, the Girls refuse to be forgotten. She doesn’t shy away from painfully etched portraits of lives on the edge, and her outstanding writing skills bring them to life in a way that bears marks of inspiration from the likes of Jesmyn Ward, S. E. Hinton and Ntozake Shange.

Mottley has penned a beautiful story. Watching these young women handle their lives so carefully and recklessly brings to the plot a real sense of wonder and hope. She never lets us forget about their age, their backgrounds, the disgust, and inappropriate representation they reflect in the older “Christian” citizens of the town and its surrounding spots. With wit and electric zeal, the book is powered on everything stereotyped about such girls and pushes those labels off a building without a parachute.

THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG will take a vaulted place on your bookshelf for the rest of your days. Even on a second read, you will find it hard to put down.