Gabi, a Girl in Pieces

“Hola muchacha! What is so urgent I had to leave a pack of half-eaten Oreos behind hidden in my underwear drawer?” 

Gabi easily steps in to support her friends whenever they need her. When Sebastian calls Gabi to share that he’s gay, Gabi is immediately present and supportive. Now when Cindy needs Gabi’s support, Gabi drops what she’s doing to listen and offer advice. Although her tone is joking here, Gabi does rely on food for comfort throughout the story, so leaving behind a pack of uneaten Oreos is significant for her. Gabi also reveals here that she hides her snacks, a habit readers learn she’s acquired after years of her mother shaming her for her weight. Like many situations in the story, Gabi’s easygoing tone contradicts hints of deeper issues beneath the surface.

“My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. Just like when you drop one of those Christmas ornaments made with glass so thin that when it shatters it goes everywhere, and you are still finding the pieces in dark corners of your living room for months afterwards.”

Gabi’s knack for poetry is foreshadowed in her vivid descriptions of her feelings through imagery of a broken heart like shattered fragile glass. Gabi eventually develops into a confident writer by the end of the novel. Descriptions like this in her diary display Gabi’s natural inclination towards expressing herself using written words. Her vulnerability in passages like this also contribute to making Gabi a relatable character because she describes a feeling shared on a human level.

“Joshua Moore is gone

My heart in seven pieces

I am not lucky”

Gabi’s first attempt at poetry is a simple haiku that attempts to capture her broken heart. Compared with the imagery of the Christmas ornament, Gabi’s expression is somewhat limited by the structure of the haiku. Although a simple poem, it is a significant benchmark in Gabi’s evolution as a writer and a budding poet.

“You have tried this before, but this time I know things will be different.” 

Gabi embraces her father’s attempt to be sober again despite his previous failed efforts. Her hope that “we can grow as a family” is both naive and endearing, making her vulnerable to her audience. Although Gabi’s tone throughout her diary is often direct and sometimes cynical, her positive outlook is captured in her genuine hope that this time her father really will stay sober. 

“And while familia is the glue that keeps us crazy, it is also the glue that makes us who we are.” 

Gabi affectionately acknowledges the imperfections that make her family unique. She doesn’t downplay her father’s drug addiction or her troubled relationships with her mother and brother. Instead, she is honest about the struggles to balance being a supportive member and a coming-of-age individual. Gabi’s family tests her patience throughout the story, but she acknowledges that those experiences and relationships contribute to her own development and eventual acceptance of herself.

“That’s the magic of poetry—some gay Jewish poet wrote about people wasting away around him because of drugs, and I, a straight Mexican-American girl, know how he felt because I am seeing the same waste he witnessed over fifty years ago.” 

Gabi’s interest in poetry quickly evolves into a connection she feels with written words and even with the poets who write them. Experiencing poetry on such a personal level and gradually developing a poetic voice of her own contributes to the depth of Gabi’s character. Unlike her academic struggles in Algebra II, Gabi flourishes in her poetry class.

“She said that girls are never free. They always have to comportarse bien. Behave well.” 

Gabi’s mother expresses concern when Gabi goes quickly from being Eric’s girlfriend to liking another boy. Her mother worries constantly about how others will view Gabi’s romantic and sexual exploits. This instills a constant sense of shame around topics of sex and romantic relationships, making it difficult for Gabi to be honest with her mother when she has questions and even pushing Gabi to lie to her mother about her own sexual experiences. Gabi later poetically captures the expectations that females behave well in her zine project for her poetry class.

“Obviously, there’s a boy who likes your sister and cares about what she likes. Now imagine if she lost a little weight and took more care of herself, how many more boys would like her?”

Gabi’s mother constantly draws attention to Gabi’s weight. Even in moments when other people clearly appreciate Gabi’s uniqueness—like when Martin’s Christmas gift arrives full of objects meaningful to Gabi—her mother cannot see past Gabi’s body. This constant attention on women’s bodies runs throughout the story and becomes a theme in Gabi’s zine project, as do the conflicting social demands to both avoid sex and be physically desirable.

“Who cares! Everyone knows you’re pregnant, and that’s part of your life now and part of our life.” 

After Christmas goes smoothly with her family, Gabi enjoys an emotional gift exchange with her two best friends. Sebastian has been kicked out of his home for being gay, Cindy’s mother is ashamed of her for being a pregnant teen, and Gabi is constantly worried that her father will give in to his addiction. None of the three friends judge one another, instead supporting one another through their individual struggles as they all come into adulthood together in their own ways.

“Gabi green sea eyes

siren softly calling me

and deeply I fall in”

Martin’s haiku to Gabi is the first poem in the book that is not a piece of Gabi’s own writing. The connection between Martin and Gabi is more than the physical attraction she felt with Eric; she connects with Martin on a more intimate level and Martin reciprocates through his attention to detail in his gift and poem to Gabi.

“She says that a nice young woman does not expose her thoughts like that to the public. That writing is something that only men should do, like going to college.”

Tia Bertha’s take on poetry (and women and education) is a contrast to Gabi’s developmental trajectory in the story. Gabi is growing into a writer, one who will share not only the pain of death and addiction in her poetry, but one who will go on to highlight the social and cultural restrictions and judgements placed upon female appearance and sexuality. Gabi will also attend college, forsaking any ounce of female priority expected from her aunt. However, Tia Bertha experiences her own version of liberation at the end of the story when she embraces her own sexuality and introduces her new boyfriend Raul.

“I can’t stop writing.

I write about trees.

I write about love.

I write about my brother.

I write about me.

I write about my mom.

I write about my dad.

And it helps.”

Gabi uses writing to heal the pain of everything she copes with in daily life. Her poem about poetry touches on the meta-writing realm, demonstrating the extent of her development as a writer since her first simple haiku. She is now thinking about the act of writing, not simply writing, and she is drawing connections between the act of writing and the healing power of releasing her words. The way she describes her inability to stop writing, and the way she relies on lists such as this list of topics for her writing, show readers that Gabi uses writing to work through her ideas and emotions, not stopping to worry about form or rhyme or structure. 

“How will I know when I’m a woman?”

Gabi’s 18th birthday is marked by an impromptu list-poem of questions for her mother, ending with this one. None of these are questions Gabi feels comfortable asking her mother, though. Like the letters Gabi writes to her father, these questions for her mother remain in her diary and are never shared. Instead of getting answers directly from her mother, Gabi has to have her own experiences in order to come closer to answering this question for herself.

“Roses are red

violets are blue

sugar is sweet

and now you have diabetes.”

Gabi struggles to write after her father’s death, pushing herself under her teacher’s advice to attempt at least a piece of a poem each day. Instead of the insightful connections woven throughout stanzas, Gabi’s poetry reverts to a simple haiku with a straightforward and negative message. Her individual style and deep insight are markedly missing when Gabi forces herself to write poetry as a task rather than a creative or emotional outlet.

“There has to be more to us than that.”

This statement applies to being Mexican in the context of its placement in the story, but it also applies to being female when taken from the perspective of the novel as a whole. Gabi observes on Cinco de Mayo that people unfamiliar with the complexity of her culture use the holiday as an opportunity to appropriate and misinterpret her culture through items like sombreros and fake mustaches. Gabi unapologetically calls out those who diminish and appropriate her culture for their own enjoyment. Similarly, in her zine, she draws attention to the ways in which society diminishes women to stereotypes as well.

“I don’t think that White girls move away because they want to abandon their families and want to be free to have wild monkey sex whenever they please. In fact, I’m 100% certain that Mexican girls like having wild monkey sex too. Actually, I think that having wild monkey sex may be on the mind of many teenage girls. Hormones—and things like hate and love—know no boundaries when it comes to race and gender. I think that all we want is to be free.” 

Gabi realizes that curiosity about sex, and even the desire to have sex, is natural and human, an experience that crosses cultural and racial lines. Instead of sex being a taboo subject, Gabi wishes there could be more freedom around the topic. Freely expressing ideas and questions around sex and sexuality, such as the way Gabi does in her zine, is a step towards a greater liberation for women in her generation.

“At that moment I wasn’t too fat, I wasn’t too white, I wasn’t bad, I was just me.” 

Gabi demonstrates confidence frequently throughout the novel, but her self-acceptance reaches its climax when she embraces feeling content in being nothing but herself. Martin’s character creates an environment in which Gabi feels safe and comfortable being herself. With him, she shares her growth as a writer and explores her sexual desires and curiosities and doesn’t feel like she needs to be anyone other than herself in doing so.

“But if there is a God, I’m not sure that his main purpose is to send two people who love each other to Hell for having sex. There are worse things in life and bigger fish he should be frying.” 

Gabi occasionally touches on topics of faith, considering herself to be a “good semi-Catholic.” Martin, however, openly doubts his belief in God and is the first person with whom Gabi feels comfortable enough discussing faith without worry that she’ll be looked upon as evil or weird. Martin develops into Gabi’s primary confidant, hearing directly from Gabi about her father, her poetry, and her questions of sexual morality.