I need a sequel to this book like tomorrow. I loved everything about this book. It brought me back to when I was in school and became pregnant. I didn't face racist things like Sarah did, but I did face the looks of being a pregnant teenager. The love story is very sweet and reminds me of how so men really so care about a person and are not always after one thing. The friendship between Sarah and Devi is sweet and wonderful to read. This book opened my eyes to the struggles that teenagers have about coming out to their parents about being trans as well as young people today understanding the need to not put labels on gender as a child grows up. This is a great book for YA readers as well as some adults. This book helps for adults to understand about slut-shaming as well as watching how they speak to people. Great book. ( )

This book is so, so good. I could not put it down, and it was every bit as funny and memorable and compelling as I could have hoped. This book is diversity done right. It wasn't forced or awkward, and I haven't read many books that have been able to do that. The characters in this book were all just so perfectly imperfect. I loved all of them, from the sassy Mormor, to the gentle giant Leaf. I loved the writing and I am so glad that I got to read this. ( )

I'm a huge fan of Eva Darrows; she's a young adult author that actually writes for teens. She writes how they think, how they talk, and how they perceive the world around them. It's refreshing. Belly Up is a teen story about a girl who makes a stupid mistake and, you guessed it,gets knocked up. Not only is her father not in the picture, but neither is baby daddy. Sara has her mother, her battle ax grandma, and her best friend, Devi. She is trying to come to terms with the fact that she has a womb goblin and is going to have to put her college plans on hold (or make new ones) but it's hard to wrap her brain around it. Everything is so gross and new and scary. She starts to realize though that she is surrounded by loving caring people and she has it much easier than many other teen moms in her pregnancy group. In addition to navigating her pregnancy; Sara is also trying to navigate her way around a new high school and the feelings she has on one of the few other people of color in her school. Will he still be her friend when he inevitably finds out she's pregnant? How will the rest of her classmates act? A teen novel about unplanned pregnancy; that's funny, real, and supportive. ( )

A humorous, feel good, idyllic (unrealistic?) view of teen pregnancy. While it might exist, I'm betting it's extremely rare.

Sara (Serendipity) gets drunk at a party and has a one-truck seat stand, partly because her ex-boyfriend, who broke her heart, is at the party fawning over his new girlfriend. Of course, she gets pregnant. She has a supportive best friend, supportive mother and supportive grandmother, the latter two thenselves having had babies out of wedlock.

Much of the book discusses Sara's changing body, raging hormones and tremendous appetite. Along the way, the author manages to throw in bisexual and transgender, demisexual and non-binary. So, she's got the bases covered, mostly.

However, Belly Up seems to gloss over the ruined ivy league college plans for an "A" student, making a local college in the future an adequate alternative. It also introduces a group session for teen mothers-to-be but Sara seems to only attend once, even though she thought it helpful (especially showing that there are people worse off than she is).

While I'm all for feel good books, as I thought about this, my rating dropped from 4 stars to 3 stars because I felt that Darrows, the author, almost was doing a disservice to pregnant teens. Yes, there are very supportive family and friends and yes the world goes on, but Sara barely had anything negative occur. I don't know. maybe I'm overthinking this, but there might be a fine line between reality and fantasy and I think this might have crossed over to the fantasy line. Just my humble opinion.

However, on the positive side, she does describe what happens to girls/women through the pregnancy cycle in both an informative and humorous way, hopefully taking some of the fear out of pregnancy. ( )

*I want to preface this review by saying I have nothing against the communities mentioned in my review. I would have just preferred the story to be closer to the blurb that pulled me in.

When I read the blurb for this book I was excited. As a former teen mom myself I was hoping to read a book that encompassed all the things I went through. But, that was not to be. Serendipity (Sara's) mom was pretty much completely ok with her daughter being pregnant and not knowing how to get in contact with the guy she slept with while drunk. The whole book was really just a light fluffy read. No major drama, no real heartbreak or angst.
It just wasn't at all believable in today's world. To me, the main focus of the book was to get the gray-ace, demisexual and trans community out there in the hands of teens. Sara kept going on about how her baby's assigned gender was female, but she would let the child decide what they wanted to be.

She got a new boyfriend pretty quick after moving and of course, here comes in the demisexual Romni, Leaf who is perfectly ok with dating a pregnant girl in his last year of high school. I know that times have changed since I was young, but no boy just jumps right in without having a ton of questions and thoughts. Plus any pregnant teen is going to have a lot more to worry about, but Sara was honestly pretty nonchalant about it all. One little hiccup with some kids at her school, and then two when she finds Baby Daddy. The most real character in the whole book was Jack's dad, and that was only one short section in it.

Overall, I don't feel that I read a book about teen pregnancy, but if you want a light fluffy read without and actual substance this is a good one for you.
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