Love & Haight

Gr 10 Up—Best friends Chloe and MJ have left their homes in Arizona and headed to San Francisco. It's 1971 and bell bottoms, crystals, and mind-expanding drugs are all the rage. Chloe is pregnant, and this is the closest place she can go to get a legal abortion. At the start of the novel, neither teen seems too shaken by Chloe's unplanned pregnancy as she begins the tedious process of getting approved for the procedure. The girls stay with Chloe's Aunt Kiki, whose over-the-top hippieness causes her to say things like, "there's something different in your aura." Carlton offers readers detailed insight into the process of getting an abortion pre Roe v. Wade. The book is well researched but the historical information doesn't get in the way of the relationship-driven narrative. The frankness, language, and ideology of the characters should be appealing to most teens. Might be reason enough to purchase it.—Emily Chornomaz, Camden County Library System, NJ