From Goodreads:  Jamie and Elaine have been best friends forever, and now they’re finally juniors in high school. Elaine has a steady boyfriend, and Jamie could have one—if she’d just open her eyes and see Paul. But Jamie has a bigger problem to worry about.
Then Elaine gets “in trouble”—something they thought only happened to “other” girls. Are there any good choices for a girl in trouble?

In Trouble is a novel born of author Ellen Levine’s interviews with women who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including those who knew what it was like to be a teen facing a horrible choice.

In the decades before Roe v. Wade, a young woman “in trouble” had very few options—and all of them meant shame, isolation, and maybe much worse.

Jamie and Elaine’s stories are just two among the thousands of stories of teenagers facing unplanned pregnancies.
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Lerner Publishing Group has been extremely gracious in allowing me to read an ARC of this novel, via Netgalley, prior to its recent release, and I must say I really enjoyed this novel.  I know it’s been getting very mixed reviews, but I absolutely loved the narrative style Levine uses to tell the story of two girls facing a terrible choice.  It’s not the most happy topic in the world, this is true, but this novel is very well written and explains what life was like in the 1960s.  The story is told through the voice of Jamie as she struggles to come to terms with not only her father’s political imprisonment, but also with something devastating that happened to her (no spoilers).  This first person narrative explains her thoughts and feelings about her father, her friend’s predicament, and love in general, all the while interspersing the narrative with Jamie’s personal demons coming to the forefront as she tries to push them back.  Hence, she’ll be in the middle of explaining something to the reader and will suddenly veer off with a thought that pops into her head, very quickly coming back to the original topic at hand.  While I can see how some readers may be annoyed by this tactic, I found that it really helped show Jamie’s psyche, especially as she deals with the trauma of having a father accused of communism, and a secret that haunts her.  She is a very devastated being, closing in on herself, allowing her secret to tear her soul apart.  She stops herself from giving the advice, and saying the things she needs, and wants, to say to her pregnant friend all because she has lost the ability to stand strong.  This is a very powerful novel and I recommend it to all ages.  Four stars.