Review: "Baby Steps" by Chelsea Frank

Baby Steps by Chelsea Frank
Published August 2026 via Hot Goss
★★★★

Avery is nearing the end of law school, and the future seems bright—except for the matter of her pesky eating disorder. Oh, and also the unplanned pregnancy that she doesn't discover until it's late enough that her options are limited. And thus she finds herself flying across the country for treatment she doesn't want in order to support a pregnancy that she doesn't really know how to process.

The combination of pregnancy and an eating disorder is not entirely new in fiction, but it's unusual—offhand I can only think of one, though I'm sure there are more (honestly, I'm sure I've read more, I just can't think of many at the moment)—and I like different takes.

This is semi-autobiographical (inspired by the author's real-life experiences, says the book), although of course I don't know which parts are more directly from real life and which parts are fully fiction. (Although: I checked out Frank's Instagram while I was confirming that I'd read somewhere that it was semi-autobiographical, and she tells a story about her teenage-years bully showing up to treatment at the same time she was there—and that's something that's not in Baby Steps, and it's kind of fascinating to me because it's the sort of thing that feels too perfect(ly awful) to be reality, and in a novel people might say "this is unrealistic"...and yet.)

At any rate. By and large I found this to be a quick read, with a nice balance of figuring out the eating disorder and figuring out pregnancy. The cast is relatively diverse, and I really appreciated that this didn't devolve into romance—not that romance and eating disorders can't coexist, obviously, but I've read a few too many "my romance helped cure me" books and also a few too many "now that I'm magically cured I'm ready for romance" books. I also like that Avery isn't always all that likeable; she has her moments, but she's also deep into difficult stuff and mostly not that interested in making herself more palatable just to make someone else's life easier.

Other things I wasn't as sure about. There's a friendship late in the book that comes in, burns bright, and falls off the page again, and I wasn't really sure what the point of that section was; I found myself wondering whether that was one of the more autobiographical bits that maybe should have been left in real life. And...there are a couple of plot points that are very standard in eating disorder fiction, and I might have preferred that the book go in a different direction.

3.5 stars (and a cautious rounding-up), then, for a mixed bag but a read that kept me engaged.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.