Friday 12 September 2008

This Book Isnt's Fat It's Fabulous by Nina Beck

This Book Isn't Fat It's Fabulous
Nina Beck
Point Press

ISBN 9780545017039

Nina Beck has written a great book. Our heroine is Riley Swain who comes from money, has a best enemy not a best friend, and a guy who is her best friend but whom she has loved for a long time. Riley is content to play the New York Socialite and her manners and behavior would be fit for the tabloids if she were a Spears or a Swank. But since she just goes to an expensive high school, and hangs out with well-to-do friends, she is just the center of attention. But all of that is about to change.

It's her senior year and she has coordinated and planned the senior trip to Mexico for the second week of spring break. But now her Father and soon-to-be step-mom have registered her to go to a Fat Camp at the New Horizons School for Young Ladies. While there, things in her life turn topsy-turvy; she starts falling for a boy who isn't her type and she needs to plan an escape so she can go on the trip and fool her parents. She starts examining her motives and behaviors in a real and profound way. Yet how can it all work out?

She has lied to her best friend the day before leaving New York and she kissed him for the first time and it was not what she expected. She has booked a fake spa week to fool her friends about where she is. She now has a new man in her life, but is not sure what she feels about the old one, and her whole world is crashing down around her.

Riley Swain who says that she is fabulous, and does not care what anybody else says, is now having feelings and is caring for people in ways she never knew she could. Can she untangle her feelings and save her social life that seems destined to crash and burn on Saturday? Read and find out.

This book really is fabulous. I enjoyed it a lot, and lent it to a friend - she was laughing out loud on the first page. This book is not about a fat girl becoming skinny, it is about an unhealthy girl becoming healthy, and that starts on the inside with the emotions. This is one of the best books for young people I have read since Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and like that book, this has a lot to offer to the younger generation, and maybe even something for us older folks.

(First published in Imprint 2008-09-12.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just read this book and I thought it was fantastic. There were many times when I laughed out loud and just didn't want to put it down. I hope Nina Beck comes out with another book as well-written as this one.

Moni said...

I just finished reading this book and I loved it! I couldn't put it down I read it in two days. I was laughing pretty hard as I was reading, have to share it with friends.

nicolleberthi said...

omq i just read this book && im in lala love with it its so good.its one of the best books i have read in a whileee.!

Megan said...

I just read this and hated it and thought Riley was a bad character.