Published June 1st 2015
Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home—cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.
When Sugar meets Even (not Evan—his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.
Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.
I’m not what I expected with this book but I do feel kind of disappointed.
I liked the concept of this book but I felt like a lot of it was repetitive. I felt bad for Sugar and how she was always been bullied and verbally abused at home. I really cared about her. But I felt like the book kind of dragged on because a lot of the book was the same thing. I felt like this book was about a girl that was overweight and that was the only focus. I wanted it to be about Sugar, not her weight.
I felt like some of the bullying was kind of unbelievable. Maybe it’s just because I’ve never been bullied because of my weight so I don’t have that experience but I just couldn’t see some those things actually happening in real life.
Even though I liked Sugar well enough, I couldn’t relate to her at all. I’ve never experienced any of her troubles and because I’ve that I had a hard time understanding some things. I just couldn’t understand why Sugar would keep eating junk food when her mother was bedridden in the next room because of her diabetes. A lot of my family has diabetes and I know how serious it is. I found it really frustrating that Sugar knew what could happen to her if she kept eating so much junk food and yet she wouldn’t stop.
Overall, I liked this book but I don’t it was right for me. I wish there was more of a story outside of Sugar’s weight but I think the biggest problem with this book wasn’t even a problem. It was me because I couldn’t relate to Sugar at all. I don’t think this book is for everyone but I do think it’s a good book for the right reader.
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