From the author of Oprah’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller Nightcrawling,here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle. Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmotherΓÇÖs home in the small town of Padua BeachFlorida. When she arrivesAdela meets Emorywho brings her newborn to high schooldetermined to graduate despite the odds; Simonemother of four-year-old twinswho weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girlsa group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of SimoneΓÇÖs red truck. The town thinks the Girls have lost their waybut really they are finding it: looking for lovemaking and breaking friendshipsand navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood. Full of heart and life and hopeset against the shifting sands of these friendsΓÇÖ secrets and betrayalsThe Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila MottleyΓÇÖs promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.