After the Moment-- Garret Freymann-Weyr

A little back-story: So, I am a huge Garret Freymann-Weyr fan. She wrote My Heartbeat, which is a touching story about a young girl whose older brother is gay. She also wrote The Kings are Already here about a young ballet dancer and a chess prodigy, and and my personal favorite Stay With Me which is about sisters, love, and hotels.

So why why why didn't I love After the Moment?? It has all the elements of a good book... interesting characters, a slightly off-kilter plot-line and format, and resolution at the end that leaves the reader satisfied yet still wanting more. It's like all the parts and pieces were great, but put together they just didn't work.

After the Moment is Leigh's story, mostly. When his step-sister Millie's biological father passes away, Leigh goes to live with his father and step-family to help Millie normalize after her tragedy. While living there, he falls in love with a recovering anorexic girl named Maia. Leigh learns about himself as a person as he helps the two women in his life come to terms with their own life's problems.

I guess my issue with this book is that Leigh is the center of the plot, yet he is the most uninteresting character. He is spineless in a frustrating way, and almost greeting card perfect. He kind of reminds me of the way that Chase Crawford acts (he plays Nate on the Gossip Girl TV Show... am I loosing you here?)... you know, pretty to look at but bland and not particularly talented. Also, there are many characters to keep track of, and the most interesting part of the book are these little flashes to the future, and they are way too infrequent.

So I guess what I will say in summery, is that while this is a decent book, it's not great. I'm not sure that it has all that much teen appeal, but the more mature teen reader might like it. Also, people who like a nontraditional, not schmaltzy love story might enjoy it too.

3 Willows-- Ann Brashares

*Sigh*

I did it to myself, really. I knew, in my heart, that 3 Willows just couldn't be that good. Still, I thought I should give it a chance and not prejudge the book based on all the terribly Traveling Pants sequels. I mean, after all, I did like the first Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book before The Pants took over the universe.

3 Willows tells the story of Polly, Jo, and Ama. The three girls were best friends all through elementary school, but when Jr. High struck, they went their separate ways. Jo is the hot popular one (aka Bridget), Ama is the beautiful scholastic one (aka Lena), and Polly is the curvy artsy raised by a single mom girl (hybrid of Tibby and Carmen). All three girls have separate adventures during the summer, learn a lesson, and decide they need their real friends after all. Cue the "aaaahhhhhs".

What made this story even worse, is that Brashares kept bringing up the Traveling Pants girls. Lena and her sister Effie make an appearance, as does Bridget and Tibby's siblings and boyfriend. I mean, really, just let it go! Even the cover of the book felt dull and uninspired.

I am curious to see if girls enjoy this book. My guess is die-hard Traveling Pants fans and young girls who like clean romance will enjoy it. But I think most girls will enjoy another series a little more... this one just feels blah and recycled. Anyone else read it? What do you think?

Wintergirls-- Laurie Halse Anderson

I have always loved it when poets use seasons as a way to describe an emotion or a feeling... one of my favorite examples, historically, is "In the Springtime of his Voodoo" (Tori Amos). When I first heard that Laurie Halse Anderson was writing a book called Wintergirls, I was picturing girls in fluffy coats and woolly hats frolicking in the snow not unlike Let it Snow by John Green, Lauren Myracle, and Maureen Johnson. And boy was I wrong.

Wintergirls isn't about snowbunnies. It's about girls who are trapped in the winter of their lives. They are encased in giant bricks of ice that just won't thaw. Wintergirls are tenaciously weak, stubborn starving survivors. Wintergirls are poets, obsessors, emotional/less. Wintergirls are anorexics, bulimics, and addicts.

Lia is a wintergirl. She is also anorexic, though I don't remember her ever referring to herself in that way. When her fellow wintergirl, her recently former BFF Cassie dies in a grotesquely tragic way, Lia tumbles from her precarious point of stability and falls deeply into the throws of her eating disorder. Laurie Halse Anderson gets it right; she manages to communicate both the physical and emotional causes and repercussions of a severe eating disorder while maintaining a very believable first person narrative. She uses such lyrical, poetic language, and while sometimes it's hard to tell what is actual fact and what's a product of Lia's jumbled brain, the smudging of the lines of reality add to the overall tone and atmosphere of the book.

Can you tell I loved it?

I would recommend this book for girls who want to read about eating disorders, death of a friend, and relationships with other teens in general. I would also pass this on to teens who like verse-novels, even though this isn't one.

This book will be published in March of 2009.

**UPDATE** LHA just posted a link to this review on her blog!! I am freaking out with joy over here!

Looks- Madeleine George

Meghan Ball is massively obese. Aimee Zorn is anorexicly skinny. Both girls are completely invisible to their peers.

Madeleine George's novel, Looks, is told in alternating chapters by Meghan and Aimee. It is impossible to read this book without getting sucked in by the sheer emotional pain both girls are feeling. Sometimes overwhelming emotion from ostracism, abandonment, and betrayal manifests itself physically: like through binge eating or starving oneself. Interestingly, George's fine writing style made me feel much compassion toward the girls, but also a little repulsed by them. It's as though George wanted her readers to feel the same emotions her characters were feeling, and I always admire an author who crafts her words so well.

Overall, is this a new story? No. Is is a worthy read? Very much so. I recommend this book to girls who like stories told from two perspectives, eating disorder type books, or dramas about high school.

Big Fat Manifesto-- Sarah Vaught

Is it just me, or does it seem like there is a rise in books about teens with alternative body types? Maybe I am just noticing them more... but it seems like the eating disorder fiction trend has swung a bit from the anorexia-bulimia bend to an overweight-chubby-obese focus. Honestly, I think teens will want to read both types of books, and "issues" fiction has always been popular with the teens I see.

Big Fat Manifesto is a well written book about a girl named Jamie who is fat. She prefers the term fat, and she isn't just a bit overweight... she is at least 300 pounds and comes from a family who is also dealing with weight issues. She is a journalist and starts a column in the school paper to speak honestly about what life is like when you are physically larger than most of the population. Jamie is popular, has a boyfriend, and is an actress (though only gets to play the villain or "character" roles). Jamie's open, honest, blunt, and slightly bitchy voice is really what makes this book enjoyable. Also, there are some heart-wrenching scenes where the reader can really understand how hard life can be when you don't fit into furniture (like the desks at the ACT testing center or airplane seats), clothes (everything in 4X is designed for old ladies), or your friend's car.

Vaught doesn't not glamorize obesity, but she does a great job of making someone who is not obese understand the emotional issues that might go along with being overweight. In our thin-fascinated American (world?) culture, it is easy to poke fun at overweight folks, all in the guise of concern (health! stress on resources! diabetes!). I would be interested in hearing what teens think about this book. As an aside, it is nice to read a book with a severely overweight character who is not 100% ostracized from all things normal... Jamie has friends and a boyfriend, which is not a common thing in other books like this.

Just because:

Here is a brief list of fiction about teens with body issues... overweight, underweight, eating disorders etc. Got some to add? Let me know!

Large and Small: a short booklist of eating disorder fiction

Over

Fat Kid Rules the World-- K.L. Going

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes-- Chris Crutcher

Big Fat Manifesto-- Sarah Vaught

Vibes-- Amy Kathleen Ryan

The Earth, My Butt, and other Big Round Things-- Carolyn Mackler

Under

Mercy, Unbound-- Kim Antieau

Skin-- Adreinne Maria Vrettos

Skinny-- Ibi Kaslik

Lovesick-- Jake Coburn

How I Live Now-- Meg Rossof

Perfect-- Natasha Friend