It will not change your world, it will not make you weep crazy tears, but it will make you make you smile, it will make you think, and it will make you cringe (in a good way!) from secondhand embarrassment as you suffer alongside Ann as she goes through the awkwardness that is adolescence.ĭespite the emphasis our society puts on weight and the multibillion dollar industry on it, heavy heroines are extremely uncommon in literature.

and I don't know if I can write a positive review about this beautifully written book without sounding like a thin-privileged asshole, but here is my attempt. I don't know the pain and self-loathing the main character feels as she fails repeatedly in her attempts to lose weight, only to let herself down time after time, in a self-sabotaging, vicious cycle of emotionally eating yet another slice of cheesecake that she can't even taste. I don't know what it is like to have a perfectionist mother, who is constantly trying to put their daughter on a diet plan since before their age even reached two digits. I don't know the mortification of trying on a dress a few sizes too small and then, horror of all horrors, becoming stuck in it. I don't know what it's like to experience snide comments about one's weight from a complete stranger. I'm not going to insult the main character of this book by saying, 'I empathize with her.' I cannot. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

45 Pounds by K.A. Barson