13 ways of looking at the fat girl

13 ways of looking at the fat girl / Mona Awad 214 pgs.

Lizzie's a fat teen whose only goal seems to be to lose weight.  She starts a long distance relationship with Tom and becomes more serious about losing weight.  This book is 13 chapters about Lizzie, Liz, Elizabeth (her preferred name changes often) and her relationship with her body, her parents, the man in her life.  The cover blurb says "This book sparkles with wit..." and there are some fun parts.  But in general, I think it is just kind of depressing and seems all too real.

The little giant of Aberdeen County

The little giant of Aberdeen County: a novel/Tiffany Baker 341 pg. (audio)

A lot of the themes and situations in this book are not the kind of thing I usually like...Due to some simple mix up or misunderstanding, people spend years of their lives in bad situations and never revisit the situation again, people feel sorry for themselves, and women are frequently portrayed as weak individuals. With that said, I ended up really enjoying this book.

Truly is a huge baby whose mother dies in childbirth. She continues to grow at an unprecedented pace and soon towers over everyone including her blond "princess" older sister and all of the other kids at school. She becomes an orphan at a young age and ends up living with the town out-cast family while her attractive sister goes to the preacher's family. This book follows Truly's life and gives us some history of the town and many of the other characters. In the end, I felt like there was a strong message of the joys of self acceptance and how that can lead to happiness.