The Given-Up Girl: A Novel

1969. Halstead College. Freedom is in the air—but so are the consequences.When Bonnie Koller arrives on campus, she’s ready to trade her careful upbringing for independence. With her fearless roommate Hollis leading the way, she sheds her skirts for jeans and begins to imagine a life defined by her own ambition.Then an unwanted pregnancy changes everything.In pre-Roe America, options are scarce and danger is real. As Bonnie and Hollis navigate frightened boyfriends, dubious doctors, and a hospital system riddled with corruption, their search for an abortion becomes a desperate race against time—one that will test their courage, their friendship, and their futures.Twenty years later, Bonnie is no longer a frightened college student but a successful small-town lawyer. When she sets out to find the daughter she bore and gave up, she follows a trail of records and memories back to the year that shaped her life. But the given-up girl may not want to be found—and the truth about 1969 may be more complicated than Bonnie is prepared to face.A powerful, timely novel about choice, friendship, and the long shadow of the past, The Given-Up Girl explores what it means to claim your future when your options have run out.Winner of the 2025 Best Regional Literature Award from the New England Book FestivalRunner-Up for the 2025 General Fiction Award from the New York Book FestivalAbout the AuthorBorn and raised in Manhattan, Ellen B. Rockmore was once a New York lawyer, but for the past eighteen years she has taught expository writing at Dartmouth College. She lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with her husband and three children. Fortunately, only two of them play hockey. Ellen recently began a two-year term as a state legislator in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Her essay titled “How Texas Teaches History” was published in the New York Times. Read more