Lillian Bergbom 3/20/20

Pregnancy Project Book Review Block 1B

Based on a true and alarming report, “The Pregnancy Project” tells the story of a small town
with a girl named Gaby Rodriguez. Starting from a basic school project, her experiment blossoms into a
tale that makes an international impact. Gaby fakes her pregnancy and must get through nine months
with her peers and family shunning her. All alone at the most difficult time, Gaby will use her
experiences to expose the unforgiving truth of stereotypes.

Growing up in a large family made mostly of teen pregnancy, she has had to deal with
stereotypes her whole life. Between her teen mom mother, teen parent siblings, and the loss of dad’s
role in her life, she has witnessed it all. Gaby has always been a straight A student and she wants to
break the family spell, being the first one to attend college. Not only does Gaby strive to succeed unlike
others before her, but she wants to make a difference. With the thought of her family, Gaby decides her
school project will based off teen pregnancy she “also wanted to open up a discussion on stereotypes
and statistics.” The experiment will focus on the ups and downs of the change in reactions around her.
(Mostly downs.) Gaby plans the whole thing down to each day and decides she will only tell a few
people to make sure she can get the true and raw reaction from everyone else. She tells her mom,
boyfriend, best friend, sister, the principal, and the superintendent. She would have told even less
people however she needed her sister to get the responses from her family, her best friend for the
responses of her peers, and of course the permission to proceed with the project by the school. Gaby
knows she has a tough road ahead of her but is willing to do what it takes. She plans to reveal around six
months that she is not pregnant at a school assembly and read off all the awful comments she has
gotten of her pregnancy. Gaby hopes her speech will change at least one person's life. Gaby would never
expect her experiment to be such a huge success outside her school as well. Read “The Pregnancy Test”
to catch Gaby’s inspiring speech and how many lives she actually impacts. “”This is going to be very big”
my mom said. Looking back, that was an understatement.”

This book can relate to many others by its basic morals. It breaks through stereotypes exposing
them in a very raw way. A book similar to this is “To Kill a Mockingbird”. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” the
author makes it very clear how much racism there was in the past. A murder is used to show inequality.
The equivalent to this in “The Pregnancy Test” is teen pregnancy especially in Latina families. Both
stories were written to expose the awful truth of the status quo.

Not only did Gaby Rodriguez’s book speak to many people, but the fact that all of it was true in
the story makes it that much more awful. The hard truths are what make people want to change and
help others around them. There are videos and articles about Gaby’s life and after reading the book, I
encourage you to watch them and let her story sink in. Remember her words, for it will only help you
make smart decisions in the future.