The book Belly Up is about 17-year-old Serendipity, Sara, who finds herself with an unexpected pregnancy. She tells her story of how difficult it is to be a teen mother, especially one without a solid father figure. Sara’s mother reveals they have to live with her grandmother for a while, due to financial troubles. She has to work through telling her mother, grandmother, and friends while juggling a new school, home, relationships, and health problems. The book is split up into 3 parts, about the three trimesters of pregnancy. 

I enjoyed this book. It was told in the first-person view of Sara, in the present tense. She has a short period where she goes back to explain how she got pregnant, but other than that, everything is unknown to her. The book showcases a wonderful family dynamic where the mother and grandmother, who were both teen mothers, accept her, and help her through the difficulty of being a young mother. It explains the idea that as a teen mother, you have many options, and Sara even goes back and forth between adoption or raising the child herself. The book shows that even though Sara and the child’s father are not together in a relationship, he is still allowed to be present, and they don’t in any way have to be together. 

Although the book was very clearly written by a middle-aged woman, it shows that she tried to not sound like an adult. Sara was 17, and shouldn’t be talking like she was 30, but the attempt at sounding younger was sort of cringeworthy in some places for me. I had two friends read the first chapter and one couldn’t even finish it due to it being cringe. The book just gave a “try-hard” feel, and sometimes that made it hard to read. I also didn’t care too much for the ending, as I felt it was a tad rushed and left out key factors.