Yes, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces Is Banned!
📖 Why You Should Read This Book
Quintero writes with the raw energy of a real teenager's journal. Gabi is funny, angry, and unapologetically herself. The book was a Pura Belpre Award winner and remains essential Latinx YA.
Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces is a diary novel that follows Gabi Hernandez through her senior year of high school in Southern California. Gabi’s plate is full: her father is addicted to meth, her best friend Cindy just got pregnant, her best friend Sebastian just came out as gay, and Gabi herself is trying to reconcile her Mexican-American identity with her love of poetry and her refusal to fit the mold her family and culture expect. The diary format lets Quintero capture Gabi’s voice at its most raw and unfiltered, mixing English and Spanish, poems and rants, recipes and heartbreak. Gabi is fat, feminist, and done apologizing for either.
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces has been challenged 7 times across Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Missouri, and Tennessee, targeted for sexual content. The book won the prestigious Pura Belpre Award in 2015 and is considered essential Latinx YA literature. The “sexual content” involves a teenager thinking and talking about sex the way real teenagers do: frankly, sometimes awkwardly, without catastrophic consequences. Quintero has said she wrote the book for girls like the ones she taught in her classroom, girls who never saw themselves in the books they were assigned. Removing it from libraries takes away one of the few YA novels that centers a Mexican-American girl’s voice without filtering it through white expectations.
Why Was It Banned?
Where Was It Banned?
Read It Anyway
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Gabi, a Girl in Pieces banned?
Yes, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero has been banned or challenged in 7 documented instances across 5 states in the United States, including Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee. It remains one of the most frequently challenged books in America.
Why was Gabi, a Girl in Pieces banned?
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces has been challenged and banned for the following reasons: Sexual Content. These challenges have come from school boards, libraries, and parent groups seeking to restrict access to the book.
Where is Gabi, a Girl in Pieces banned?
As of 2025, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces has been banned or challenged in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee. Notable bans include Clay County School District (2022), Beaufort County School District (2022), Texarkana Independent School District (2022).