Goodreads reviews for The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No
Women24, 2008
Adele Hamilton
Although she was pregnant at 14, Tracy was not your typical bad girl. Yet she faced the censure and confusion that inevitably follows a teenage pregnancy.
Tracy’s naturally funny and candid style of writing keeps the reader engaged as she comes into her own as a parent. She is honest and humorous as she admits the mistakes she made, but also confident in her role as a mother, first and above all.
My own prejudices about teenage mothers were challenged at every turn, as she dares to express the unconventional view that her teenage pregnancy was meant to be – the making rather than the breaking of her. Hopefully there will be more to come from this naturally gifted writer who tells it like she sees it.
Your Pregnancy, April 2008
Previous “good girl” Tracy was just that: a good girl, until she found herself pregnant at 14. “Shock to the system” is an understatement, but Tracy rallies. Join her as she relives having her son Stephen and dealing with all the surrounding drama, tongue firmly in cheek. Thank goodness for supportive families. It’s a laugh but also a sobering look at being a teenage mom.
Seventeen, March 2008
Ashley Musgrave (16)
Tracy is 28 years old, has a teenage son and a five-year-old daughter. Through her memoir that is both funny and heartbreaking, she relives her experience of becoming a teenage mom. Reading her story made me realise that even the biggest problems aren’t always the end of the world, and that you can live through just about anything, if you try!
Big Issue, November 2007
Tracy Engelbrecht was a fairly average, semi-angst ridden 14-year-old South African teenager when she got pregnant. The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No is her honest exploration of what it means to be a teenage mother in a society that considers the very idea both unpleasant and taboo. Engelbrecht infuses her writing with sardonic wit and frank exposition, making for very easy reading. As Engelbrecht says in the prologue, “It’s not a cautionary tale of a Good Girl Gone Bad or even of a Bad Girl Made Good… It’s just a little story of changes and adjustment, of love and destiny”. The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No is a refreshing look at motherhood free from the usual cheese and cliché.
Daily News, October 2007
Tracy Engelbrecht was a Good Girl. But at the age of 14 she was pregnant and her world changed overnight.Her son Steven was born when she was just 15 years old.
Thirteen years later Engelbrecht tells her story – how she told her parents she was pregnant, and how her life has panned out since she took the decision to have her baby and keep him.
In the prologue of the book she says this story is “not a tragic cautionary tale of a Good Girl Gone Bad or even of a Bad Girl Made Good… It’s a little story of changes and adjustment, of love and destiny.”
And that it is. It’s honest and real, it’s not sugar-coated and neither is it horrifyingly gruesome.
The book is a great read about a young girl who thought she had all the answers.
Drum, November 2007
Tracy Engelbrecht was a good girl. She got good marks, had no tattoos and didn’t hang with the bad crowd. In fact, she was just an average teenager whose only responsibility was to study hard and concentrate on her future. Falling pregnant at 15 was definitely not part of her plans. In the light-hearted yet honest biography the author takes us on a journey into the life of a pregnant teenager. We experience her feelings of burning remorse about her one mistake, her pain, excitement and fears about the situation in which she found herself. How does a 15-year-old cope with pregnancy, birth, homework and boys” With frank humour, Tracy tells us everything you will never pick up in any self-help pregnancy book.
Fairlady, December 2007
Meet Tracy Engelbrecht. She’s a good girl, gets good marks and is generally polite. She’s also 14 and pregnant. This true story tells how Tracy dealt with being a very, very young mom, andhow she ended up having another baby as a single mother. A very funny and touching story about a young woman who has made a success of her life against the odds.
Cape Times, December 2007
Tracy Engelbrecht’s first book is honest to the point of running down the street, shrieking and naked.
Her story is not one often told with humour or lightness – that is, the story of what it is like to be a teenage mom. But she achieves a well-settled truth in her book, and one has the distinct impression that she hopes her message reaches the ears of those she hurt, and those who hurt her, on her bumpy ride.
She certainly does talk a lot. She bounces all her ideas and thoughts off the reader at the same time, and achieves that giggly hysteria we associate with teenage midnight feasts or slumber parties.
That is the idea, one would assume, as she immediately reveals that she was a mere 15 when she had her son. She insists she was “a good girl … quiet, reserved and painfully shy … no trouble at all”, and the reader mentally rolls his or her eyes.
But Tracy really does reveal herself to be very normal, or, at least, easy to identify with. She knows well how easy it would be to judge her, and she pre-empts this with calm acknowledgement and acceptance. Her style is rapid and drags one into her fast-flowing current.
She describes the moment she told her parents she was pregnant and “cried that ugly cry – the loud one with all the drool and snot and heaving bosoms”.
Then she later turns a delightful phrase when her boyfriend’s mother questions the paternity of the child – she describes her “flabbers” as being “utterly gasted”.
With wit and humility, Engelbrecht shares her mistakes and triumphs, regrets and pleasures. She doesn’t presume to be an agony aunt or a psychologist – just another girl, not so different from everyone else.
_____________________________________________________
PS. Thanks to Conor for retyping all of these for me on Saturday night. Ray of sunshine on a cloudy day and all that. Mwah.
