Expecting

Belle's explicitly preachy debut is an exploration of an alternate America in which Sarah Palin%E2%80%94after the death of John McCain%E2%80%94became president and promptly restricted reproductive rights across the country. Living in Palin's United States is 15-year-old Sheila Martin, a rape victim whose mother won't let her get an abortion. Instead, Sheila is sent away to a House of Mercy, a destination for underage, pregnant girls. Her roommate, an 11-year-old girl who was raped repeatedly by her older brother and forced by her Roman Catholic parents to keep the child, crystallizes Sheila's feelings about abortion. Soon, Sheila resolves to help her roommate escape and get an abortion, but her plan fails, setting up further confrontations with her parents and the system. Belle's novel%E2%80%94perhaps an attempt at a cross between Girl Interrupted and The Handmaid's Tale%E2%80%94is sadly little more than a diatribe against conservative America, thinly veiled as a teenager's journal. While readers will sympathize with Sheila's experience and find her voice reasonably convincing, the insertion of facts about abortion and lectures against its restriction diminish her story.