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A review by clarkminimized
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
4.0
Overweight issues cum female empowerment ala Ani DiFranco and I actually enjoyed it? Shh, don't tell anyone!
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Fat Girl Code of Conduct says:
1. All sexual activity must be kept a secrect.
2. Never discuss your weight with the boy you’re seeing.
3. Go further than all the skinny girls.
4. Never push for a relationship.
Virginia Shreves plays by the rules. Mondays after school she makes out with Froggy Welsh the 4th in the privacy of her bedroom, but never lets it be known at school. She knows that fat girls are like mopeds: fine to ride as long as your friends never find out.
Virginia comes from a seemingly perfect family and goes to Brewster High, a seemingly perfect school. But her WASPy psychologist mom is woefully out of touch with her children, and her dad is always gone on business trips. Lately, her older brother, Byron, is distant, and her older sister Anais has joined the Peace Corps and is away in Burkina Faso. To make matters worse, her best friend Shannon just moved to Walla Walla Washington, hometown of the Walla Walla Onion.
Virginia’s on a diet and her parents take her to Dr. Love, a specialist in adolescent nutrition. Her mom forces her to take French, though she would much rather learn to tell people off in Chinese. One day she overhears skinny Brie in the bathroom one day say that if she were as fat as Virginia she’d kill herself. Virginia wonders if she should go the route of her namesake, Virginia Woolf, and fill her pockets with rocks and drown herself in a river.
But then a phone call shakes up the Shreve image of family perfection, Virginia decides she’s sick of downing Poland Spring and eating lettuce, and decides to take her life into her own hands. Suddenly, anything is possible.
*
Fat Girl Code of Conduct says:
1. All sexual activity must be kept a secrect.
2. Never discuss your weight with the boy you’re seeing.
3. Go further than all the skinny girls.
4. Never push for a relationship.
Virginia Shreves plays by the rules. Mondays after school she makes out with Froggy Welsh the 4th in the privacy of her bedroom, but never lets it be known at school. She knows that fat girls are like mopeds: fine to ride as long as your friends never find out.
Virginia comes from a seemingly perfect family and goes to Brewster High, a seemingly perfect school. But her WASPy psychologist mom is woefully out of touch with her children, and her dad is always gone on business trips. Lately, her older brother, Byron, is distant, and her older sister Anais has joined the Peace Corps and is away in Burkina Faso. To make matters worse, her best friend Shannon just moved to Walla Walla Washington, hometown of the Walla Walla Onion.
Virginia’s on a diet and her parents take her to Dr. Love, a specialist in adolescent nutrition. Her mom forces her to take French, though she would much rather learn to tell people off in Chinese. One day she overhears skinny Brie in the bathroom one day say that if she were as fat as Virginia she’d kill herself. Virginia wonders if she should go the route of her namesake, Virginia Woolf, and fill her pockets with rocks and drown herself in a river.
But then a phone call shakes up the Shreve image of family perfection, Virginia decides she’s sick of downing Poland Spring and eating lettuce, and decides to take her life into her own hands. Suddenly, anything is possible.