Growing Up Fast

From The New Republic:
"In nearly 400 fast-paced pages of wonderfully evocative prose, much of it in the words of her six subjects, all teen mothers, Lipper has actually conveyed the social and personal history of a growing class of Americans for whom there is little help and less hope. But this class of people has inner lives, and this is what Lipper is so deft at communicating...Lipper has mastered all of the relevant data. She has also mastered the scholarship on teens, on teen families, on children of these families, on the families from which these mothers come. Lipper is not only a filmmaker and writer. She is a photographer, and the book's chapters are interspersed with probingly gentle photographs of the dramatis personae." 

From The New York Times:
"Lipper builds a detailed case against the systems -- schools, welfare, the Department of Social Services -- that repeatedly fail these girls."

From The Washington Post:
"This book should be mandatory reading in middle school, for as the young mothers themselves explain, had they known what they were getting into, they never would have walked this path." 

From Publisher's Weekly:
"Compelling and important...this book adroitly illuminates a social crisis."

From Booklist:
"This deserves a spot on the shelf near Robert Coles' similarly accessible investigations of contemporary social issues."

The Elle Readers’ Prize:
“Lipper’s straightforward account of teen mothers struggling to raise their children in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, doesn’t treat these young women as objects of pity or scorn. She reveals their näiveté and the poor choices they’ve made, but also their willingness and determination to take care of their babies despite such obstacles as abusive boyfriends, drug addiction, and low-paying jobs.”

From Seventeen Magazine:
“…a moving portrait of struggling young families trying to make it without much help.”

From Elle girl:
“Joanna Lipper’s collection of excruciatingly real stories …will captivate you.”

From The Washington Post Fall Preview:
"There is nothing like the excitement of cracking open a new book, discovering talent, stumbling onto a fresh idea. It's what keeps us alert, trolling the endless shelves... Growing Up Fast, the story of six teen mothers in a burnt-out rust-belt city (originally the subject of a documentary) reveals much about welfare reform, domestic violence, and the state of public education."

From MSNBC News:
"What makes Lipper's book a page-turner is how intimate and detailed the stories are. Whether it's attributable to an interviewing skill of Lipper's or the openness of the young mothers, they've held little back. Growing Up Fast is a fascinating and deeply personal look into a part of our world that many of us choose not to see."

From Mother Jones:
"....extraordinary reporting... clear, insightful prose.... Growing Up Fast succeeds because of the author's evident respect for her subjects."

From JAMA:
"Growing Up Fast is readably written from the perspective of someone not much older than the young women profiled. Lipper writes with compassion and insight, is not judgmental, and accentuates her subjects' strengths... I would recommend this book not only for health care professionals taking care of adolescent girls but possibly to teenagers themselves, so that they can read firsthand the struggles of these young parents."