The Girls Who Grew Big

From the author of the Booker nominated, international bestseller Nightcrawling: a novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a Florida beach town.

When Adela Woods tells her parents she’s pregnant, they immediately send her a thousand miles away to stay with her grandmother in Padua Beach. The intention is that she will leave her baby in 'the forgotten Panhandle of Florida'. and resume her suburban life nine months later as though nothing happened. But Adela’s plans are soon washed away by the tide.

First, Adela meets Emory, a new mother determined to defy the expectations of everyone around her, returning to high school with her newborn baby strapped to her chest. Then she meets Simone, ringleader of ‘the Girls,’ a group of young mothers who create a village together in the back of her red truck―dancing, breastfeeding, raising their children and themselves.

The town thinks they’ve lost their way. Really, they are finding it.

But as they look for love, make and break friendships, navigate the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood, Adela, Emory and Simone also find themselves on an inescapable collision course with one another.

A novel full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman, a daughter, and a mother.

Leila Mottley's first novel, Nightcrawling, was a New York Times bestseller, an Oprah's Book Club pick, and its longlisting made Leila the youngest ever Booker Prize nominee. She is the author of the poetry collection woke up no light and was the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. She was born and raised in Oakland, California, where she continues to live.