This book was so awesome and weird that words fail me. ( )

This was fun. Silly and cheesy in ways (see: concept), but the heroine felt genuine. She's spunky and not afraid to be honest or kick butt. The plot is really silly, and the science really doesn't hold up, but remember why you picked this up in the first place. A fast read and a good way to spend the time. ( )

Elvie wanted to go to space, but going to space in a ship turned into a the Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers wasn’t in her original plans for how she’d spend her junior year. She’s still okay with going, though, until the ship is invaded by a team of attractive commandos, including the baby’s dad, Cole. These commandos tell her that their teachers were aliens, but so are they, and the ship was created to help repopulate their alien species. During the attack, however, the ship is damaged, and Elvie has to decide who to trust to help her and the other pregnant girls find a way off the ship if they want to survive. Elvie learns to figure out how to survive the multiple alien species she is introduced to, determines how to handle Cole, and decides if she’s keeping the baby or putting it up for adoption after all.

There are some aspects of the book that may trouble readers. The majority of the characters are pregnant teenagers, some of them die in disturbing ways, and the aliens impregnating teenagers girls and then making them sterile could be upsetting and brings up a lot of issues about consent. However, overall this book is a lot of fun. Elvie is funny, smart, and a problem solver, but she still makes mistakes and sometimes has a difficult time knowing what to do in tough situations. Her commentary is laugh-out-loud funny and her determination is admirable. The technology in the book feels right for that far into the future. The story is completely ridiculous, but in a way that is fun, entertaining, and special even in the more intense moments. The book is definitely fluff, but the teenage science fiction element makes it unique and fresh. ( )

Teen fic; pregnant teens battle aliens in space (humor/romance). This is what Beauty Queens should've been like--I respect Libba Bray, but why did she hafta go about trying to redeem her ridiculous characters one by one, in the most boring ways possible? The authors here instead just go for the laughs, and it delivers. Note to parents/teachers: there is some swearing in here, but it stops just short of printing the f-word. Potentially more sticky than the language is the issue of abortion/choice, although the fetuses in this case turn out to be alien parasites that only look like humans--not actually humans at all. Predictably, Elvie decides to keep hers, knowing full well that the baby will grow up to be extremely good-looking and talented as well (joining the ranks of other alien geniuses as Mozart and James Dean), even if (most likely) she'll be rendered infertile in the process of giving birth. My other issue with the story was that her love interest, Cole, is awfully skeezy (intentionally impregnating 2 teens girls with his alien spawn, knowing full well they're not wanting to be moms yet--Elvie, at least, is on the pill--and that they won't be able to have kids of their own afterward) and definitely not deserving to be forgiven so easily. But we'll have to see what happens to Elvie and Cole (and Britta) in the next book(s). ( )

This was...silly. But entertaining. I was a little uncomfortable at times with the underlying thread of "pro-life" throughout the book, but otherwise I enjoyed this. Gave an interesting twist to a common issue. ( )