Sometimes, you read the book you didn’t know you needed to read when you read it. Enter Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, A Girl in Pieces.

Mexican American Gabi is a senior this year, and the book picks up in the months leading up to her final year in high school. It jumps in immediately, as this is a diary-style novel, and we’re quickly introduced to Gabi’s best friend Cindy and Sebastian. Cindy just discovered she’s pregnant and Sebastian, who Gabi has known to be gay for a while, just came out to his family. Those two revelations set off the string of events to follow — Cindy’s pregnancy, as Gabi is by her side through the entirety of it and Sebastian’s coming out, as Gabi helps him find a stable place to live after he’s kicked out of his own home.

But this isn’t the story of what happens to Gabi’s friends.

Gabi’s own home life is imperfect, as is her love life. Her father is an addict, and he’s more unreliable than he is reliable and stable. Gabi’s upset and hurting by it, but because it’s such a normal part of her life, she depicts it as such.

She’s interested in a number of boys, but she has no idea whether they’re interested, and she certainly has no idea how to kiss them, were that opportunity to arise. But as the months roll on, we see Gabi test out relationships with a number of guys throughout, and she offers her keen insight into what she did or did not like about each one . . . and whether her final choice was the right one for her. There is keen, positive depictions of sexuality and Gabi’s understanding of her limits, as well as discussion of consent. Her aunt taught her the phrase “eyes open, legs closed,” which is a theme that runs throughout her diary, but it’s a phrase in which he can’t always agree — especially as more unravels about Cindy’s pregnancy and the pregnancy of another of Gabi’s classmates. Oh, and there’s the surprise pregnancy her mother has, too.

Because we get Gabi unfiltered, we see the pregnancies through her eyes without any glossing over. We know what it was like to be in the delivery room with Cindy and we know what it’s like when someone has to go to an abortion clinic and all of the steps and secrecy involved in that.

One of the biggest challenges Gabi faces in the story is that she’s torn between going away to college and remaining at home with her family. She’s stuck in that space between pursuing her own dreams as an American girl and the traditional role she has in staying home and helping with the family, as children in Mexican families often do. She applies to schools, including some big name universities, and ultimately gets accepted to her dream school. The wrestling she does about her future is complicated and thoughtfully approached, but it’s made even more challenging when she does something at school that gets her in trouble. Huge trouble.

And it’s here where Quintero’s good debut novel becomes an outstanding novel.

Although this is a diary of Gabi’s life, it’s a deep exploration of sexuality and more specifically, it’s also an exploration of “dude culture.” That is, why do we allow “boys to be boys” but we don’t offer protection to girls from boys? Or more accurately, why do we allow “boys to be boys” anyway? What does it say when boys are allowed to do what they want to and it’s permitted, where a girl has to suffer the consequences not just of her own actions but of the things acted upon her? Gabi won’t stand for it, and she keeps turning her mind back to that phrase “eyes open, legs closed.” It becomes almost a tool of power for her when she begins working through the anger and frustration she has, even though that wasn’t the intended purpose for her aunt telling it to her.

Gabi is also a fat girl. But she’s not just a fat girl in a YA novel. She’s a fat girl in a YA novel who loves to eat, who loves to talk about eating, and yet, she’s brutally honest about what being fat means in her life. She’s regularly teased and she’s given a lot of grief at home about it, and she herself admits to wishing she could be thinner. Trying on clothes is a pain, among other things. But what Quintero does not do in this book is make Gabi any less of a full, exceptionally-realized, dream-seeking main character. Her fat does not hold her back. It becomes a thing she talks about in a way that is another part of who she is, even if it’s something she feels like other people judge her much more harshly for than she does. Gabi’s body is not the whole story. Gabi’s body does not make her unable to live her life to the fullest. It does not make her unattractive to boys. It does not isolate her from her friends. It does not make her depressed or sullen or fearful of food. Her body is just that: her body. This is an amazing and affirming message to see in a book, and I think it will resonate deeply with readers.

This is a story that also includes positive female friendship, positive male-female friendship, laugh-out-loud moments of awkward interactions with boys, and really heart-warming scenes. There are some really tough parts to read, as Gabi’s family does suffer a major blow, but those are tempered with moments that make you cheer for Gabi, too. The diary format for Gabi, A Girl in Pieces was the absolute right choice for telling the story because it allowed both immediacy and distance from events (Gabi has to reflect on what happens after the fact, when she’s writing, rather than in the immediacy as it’s happening) and because it is exceedingly rare to see a “year in the life” diary of a character of color. Gabi owns every bit of this story.

Gabi is an empowered teen girl from the start, but it’s not something she entirely realized. It’s through this year she comes to discover that about herself — and those moments of getting it are rich for the reader.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces has garnered five starred reviews so far from the trade journals, but I have seen virtually no discussion of this book and I think that may be because this is from a smaller press. But this is a book with huge teen appeal that I hope people pick up, give a chance, and then talk about. Quintero’s writing style and story telling reminded me a lot of Amy Spalding. Fans of Sara Zarr, Susan Vaught, or Siobhan Vivian’s novels will do well with this book, too. Readers looking for serious books that are infused with good moments of humor and honesty, as well as depictions of awkward teen relationships, dynamic families, the challenges of pursuing your own interests while also respecting and being part of a host of cultural traditions, and great female leads will find a lot to enjoy here.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces is available now. Review copy from the publisher.