The DUFF: the designated ugly fat friend.  The one girl in a group that’s just not “as pretty” as the others.  DUFF: it’s a “real” thing, you know.  You can look it up on Urban Dictionary, where it’s been an entry since 2003.  The DUFF, the girl in any group who’s just not as pretty, not as skinny, not as noticeable, not as special as the friends she’s with. And, regardless of the group, regardless of the situation, you already (and always) know who the DUFF is…don’t you?  She’s you.

“For a girl with such a fat ass, I felt pretty invisible.”

FINALLY, you are saying to yourself SHE’S GOING TO WRITE ABOUT A FAT BOOK (AS PROMISED) AT HER FAT BLOG.  IT’S ABOUT TIME!

Well, about that . . .

But!  But!  It says “fat” right there, in the title!  Yet one of the things that works about The DUFF is that we don’t really know if our protagonist, Bianca, is “actually” fat.  And one of the things that doesn’t just work but that makes The DUFF brilliant is that it still manages to be about the complicated and often painful politics of body image.  Bianca might be fat.  She might not be.  The DUFF challenges readers to ask: what does fat look like and what does fat mean anyway?

The DUFF starts one night out when Bianca is out with her friends.  She is approached by Wesley, school hottie and well-known player, who attempts to chat her up so her friends will like him.  Why would that work?  Because, as Wesley explains, Bianca is The Duff among her friends.  She knows it and they know it, he assures her.   If they see him talking to her, why, they’ll think he’s sensitive and kind for deigning to talk to her and probably make out with him.  Bianca, naturally insulted, throws her Cherry Coke in his face and stalks off.

Of course, you can probably guess where this is headed.

One of the things that works the best about this book is that though many plot developments seem inevitable and predictable (Bianca and Wesley’s hostility is also chemistry?  You don’t say!) Kiplinger still manages to give them an extra dimension, something just a little different than what you thought you guessed.

Like I said, we don’t know “how fat” Bianca is, but we do get to hear some of her thoughts on how fat she feels.  She refers to herself as having “big thighs” (p. 12), as being “chubby” (p.39),  and as having a “fat ass” (p. 139). But, again, Kiplinger knows that everyone feels that way sometimes, that feeling like that doesn’t always describe how we actually look.  Is this a book about a fat girl?  Kinda.  But it’s also a book about how society sometimes makes you feel like “a fat girl” by making you feel like “fat” is the worst of who you are.

Another nice touch: Bianca’s best friends, Casey and Jessica, also have insecurities about their looks.  Though Wesley opens by telling Bianca she’s the DUFF, Casey and Jessica are only human.  At one point, Casey protests SHE’S the DUFF.  Casey thinks she’s “Sasquatch” (p. 44) … but tall girls are all models, right?  They never have anything to worry about! Kiplinger knows that’s not true, and she knows that’s the heart of the DUFF.  One particularly nice, subtle moment comes when Bianca says something dismissive to Casey about the girls on the cheerleading squad, a squad Casey happens to be a member of:

“…He wouldn’t even date a girl on the Skinny Squad–”

“I really hate it when you call us that.” (p. 190)

Such a nice touch!  Slamming of the other cheerleaders who have “skinny” bodies doesn’t pass without comment.  Casey lets Bianca know that makes her uncomfortable, that the language is reductive and hurtful.  In less than 20 words and without beating you over the head with it, Kiplinger gets the point across, loud and clear.

So, Bianca finds herself pulled into a quickly escalating physical relationship with Wesley in an attempt to get through some rough personal times. (again, an refreshingly honest detail: sometimes, we use physical and sexual intimacy in a way that’s not always healthy or fair.  But it feels good and it makes us feel connected.)  They banter, bicker, have sex, and start to scratch each other’s surfaces.  But can they ever be more than just “enemies-with-benefits?”

(This is one of the book’s less believable parts: it’s so honest about sex that when the plot starts to veer off to “and the guy you have random hook-ups with could totally turn into awesome boyfriend material if you just stick it out and give him a shot!!!” it feels a little unrealistic.  Yeah, that happens, but, in my experience, not that often.  But this is, in many ways, a romance novel so it’s not entirely jarring or unexpected within the genre.)

The relationship between Bianca and Wesley is good, don’t get me wrong.  For one thing: their sexual relationship is sizzling and integral to their relationship as a whole. (This is one of very few YA book I can think of that discusses cunnilingus.  [maybe the only non-lesbian one?] And discusses it in a way that seems totally believable and real to a teenage girl’s mind.) No hand-holding here, Edward Cullen!  The way the book deals with sex is definitely for mature readers but it’s also good to see YA fiction moving beyond the billowing curtains.  And Bianca and Wesley’s banter is good too: natural, unforced, and kind of mean in all the best ways.  So are the moments when they start to really connect.  She stands up to him, calls him on bullshit, and doesn’t let him treat her like crap.  He likes her more because of that.  That’s believable, that works.

But, for me, what makes The DUFF really work is Bianca’s relationship with her girlfriends, some other girls at school, and herself.  This is a feminist book.  It’s a book about owning your identity, about not feeling bad for feeling good about sex, a book about rejecting “sexist” labels and words that tear girls down.  (yes, Kiplinger uses the word sexist!  HURRAH!)

Reading The DUFF and not knowing how ugly or fat Bianca “really” is doesn’t just show how subjective and individual measures like that are.  Keplinger knows it helps readers understand that everyone feels like the DUFF sometimes.  Perhaps that seems a little simplistic, but I think it’s a message teen readers NEED to hear.

Hell, I think it’s a message we ALL need to hear.

Recommended for: Language and sexual situations make this one for older teens only.  I recommend this as a first purchase for public libraries and for teens in grades 10-12.  I think this has the potential to be one of those books teen girls pass around from friend to friend.

A NOTE ABOUT THE COVER!

You’ll note that my post features two covers.  The one of the left is a picture I took the ARC cover.  The one one the right is the one that’s shown on Amazon, Kiplinger’s site, etc.  I IMPLORE YOU, POPPY, PLEASE USE THE ONE ON THE LEFT.  Not because the girl on the left is “fat” (maybe she is, maybe she isn’t…which fits the text!) but because the cover on the right seems all wrong for the book.  Funky eyeshadow?  Blowing a bubble with bubblegum? What does that have to do with anything?  It seems almost tween-ish.  AND THIS IS NOT A TWEEN BOOK.  That model looks almost flippant and uninterested.  The girl on the left is looking right at you: up close and unblinking.  I can practically see the smirk on her lips.  She’s Bianca.

Comment for a Chance to WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK!

I hope you can’t wait to read this book!  It doesn’t come out until September 7, but after ALA I ended up with two advance reading copies.  (thanks to Little & Brown!)  I knew that meant I had to give one away!  So, as I did with Some Girls Are, I’m going to use random.org to select a random winner from the comments.  It could be you!

All you have to do is leave a comment with your thoughts about the word DUFF and you’re entered. (details: contest is open until August 12, US entries only please, don’t forget to use an e-mail address when you comment so I can contact you.) And if you don’t win,  don’t forget to go into your local library and request they buy a copy.

In the meantime, I suggest everyone take a moment to embrace their inner DUFF, the first step in working towards letting go of any power a word like that might have over you.

We *are* all The DUFF.

And that’s OK.

Thanks to the amazing Amy Reed (You guys have read Beautiful, right?!  It’s like Go Ask Alice but only 100 times better and less full of crap and more full of awesome writing.) I was alerted to the Huffington’s Post recent feature “13 Great Books For Gay Teens.”  First, I want to applaud the Huffington Post for publishing such an article, it’s always good to see positive content about teen books in more “mainstream” sources.  Also, kudos go to Jessie Kunhardt and Alexandra Carr, the piece’s authors, for putting together a good starter list of 13 titles.

But, wow, that list is old!

Ron Koertge’s The Arizona Kid was published 22 years ago.  Jack, A.M. Homes’s story about a 16 year old who discovers his father is gay, was published 20 years ago.  Jack, were he real, would be 36 today.  There was even mention of the well-loved classic Annie on My Mind.  But, believe it or not, Nancy Garden’s groundbreaking book was published a whopping 28 years ago.

Young adult literature has sure changed in 28 years and young adult literature about the LGBTQ experience has changed right along with it.  Reading 13 great books for LGBTQ teenagers today would be scratching the surface of a field that is rapidly expanding and contains, frankly, some of the best young adult literature being published.

As many of you probably know, research and writing about LGBTQ teen books is my first love, so I decided this Huffington Post list was the perfect opportunity for me to compile my own list  of  “Great Books” and include some of the newest, lesser known, and what I consider really special books in this genre.  Almost all of these books were published in the last  two years, but there were a few that were just tooo good, so I set my limit at five years.  With the way this genre expands, re-invents, and grows, even five years was pushing it!

Gosh, I’m so excited this is a whole freaking genre.  What a long way we’ve come, huzzah!

• Gay America: The Struggle for Equality by Linas Alsenas (2008)

In my opinion, EVERY public and middle/high school library should own this book.  Perhaps more than any other, it speaks to the giant leaps in publishing we’ve seen in this area.  This non-fiction title covers not only the history of LGBTQ life in America but on the struggle for equality and civil rights.  Alsenas incorporates personal narratives and historical documents  to make perfectly clear to teenagers struggling with their sexuality and gender identity that not only are they not alone but that, as a community, they have a rich cultural and historical legacy and they are, and have always been, part of America’s story.  So far the only book of its kind, but we can hope for more!

• Of All The Stupid Things by Alexandra Diaz (2009)

A good read-alike for fans of The Bermudez Triangle, this is another story of three friends dealing with coming out.  Tara, Whitney Blaire, and Pinkie have always been best friends, but bow Tara is discovering feelings for her marathon-training partner and new girl in town Riley.  What I liked about this one was the realistic way Diaz dealt with all of the friends coming to terms with how Tara’s new relationship changes their interactions, there’s complications and negative reactions and all kinds of realistic things teens in this situation might face from friends.  Pinkie and Whitney Blaire must really examine their assumptions and weigh them against their life-long friendship.  And, nicely, Tara and Riley have a charming, interesting romance.

• Mariposa Club by Rigoberto Gonzalez (2009)

What’s the genre still missing?  DIVERSITY.  (shocker, that.)  This book is a worthy heir to Alex Sanchez’s neo-classic Rainbow Boys.  It tells the story of Maui, Trini, Isaac, and Liberace: four gay Hispanic teens who are best friends and who decide in their senior year to start their high school’s first GSA, which they dub The Mariposa Club.  What I love about this book:  the close-knit, supportive  friendship between the gay teens (there’s token straight friends in this book!) and the wide diversity of gay identity presented.  Just because they’re gay and Hispanic doesn’t mean they’re all the same.  A under-the radar gem from Alyson Books! (But a better cover please!! Liberace, my favorite character, is an unapologetic fattie!)

• A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner (2010)

Sweet, funny, sad: this debut from Horner is a subtle, aching, sweet delight.  The coming out and sexuality angst-ing is kept to a minimum and the focus is kept instead on the main character’s charming courtship.  This story is a tear-jerker, though!  Cass is trying to pick up the pieces after her best friend Julia’s tragic death and the last thing she needs is to start to feel drawn to her middle school enemy Heather.  Cass and her friends are “putting on a show”, specifically the musical Julia wrote before she died: Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad and Heather has Julia’s part.  It’s not so much that Heather replaces Julia (because Julia and Cass really were just best friends) in Cass’s life, it’s about how Cass learns that, even when it hurts, life goes on after death.  I’ll probably write a longer review of this book later, but if you can read Cass and Heather’s climactic, romantic final scene together without sighing a little, you might have a heart of stone.

• Wide Awake by David Levithan (2006)

This was one I couldn’t leave behind.  You’ll see plenty of “Best Of” or “Essential” LGBTQ teen lists that have Levithan’s ground-breaking Boy Meets Boy, but  I think the real jewel in Levithan’s crown is this lesser known work.  Set in the future, after America has just elected our first openly gay Jewish President, this is a book that takes Boy Meets Boy gay-topia premise and puts in a real world with hard choices and angry opposition, it makes makes it work.  It’s a story of political activism, of choosing love over hate and fear, of finding your voice, and, of course, it’s a romance.   Levithan’s best work by far, it’s moving, wrenching, and (best of all) a call to arms.

• Gravity by Leanne Lieberman (2008)

A Canadian title from Orca, this is another title I think deserves a wider audience.  Lieberman’s story is, at first look, just another about a teenager coming to terms with her sexuality, but the “complication” here is that the main character, 15 year old Ellie, is an Orthodox Jew.  Lieberman does an excellent job showing not just Ellie’s issues with her faith but the struggles of all the women in her family.  And this isn’t just a story about a teenager who abandons her religion because of her sexuality, it’s much richer and more complex.  Great writing, strong characters, a magnetic romance, and a completely original premise, what more could you want?

• Ash by Malinda Lo (2009)

Hey, you know what the teens these days just love?  Fantasy.  Mix that up with some epic-destined-drawn-together-by-irresistible-forces-big-swoony romances and you’ve got the next big thing.    What else would be good?  Ah, how about a retold fairy tale!  Yeah!  Oh, and don’t forget the strong female character who kicks ass!  Totally!  Yes, when it comes to what’s “trendy” YA publishing, Ash has it all!  Except in this take on the Cinderella story, it’s not the Prince who is the dashing, magnetic love interest but the bold, brave Huntress.  Lo’s writing is rich and very literally sensual. It’s so wonderful to have some LGBTQ leading characters in fantasy to add to the canon.  (as an aside: this is a book that I’ve seen have lots of success with straight-identified teens: Strong females!  Big romance!  Fantasy!  Faeries!  Magic! it’s just the kind of book they gobble up.)

• grl2grl: short fictions by Julie Anne Peters (2007)

Another book I couldn’t leave off and another title from a widely read, widely loved author that I think gets too often neglected.  Julie Anne Peters, justly well-known and loved for writing titles like Luna and Keeping You A Secret, outdoes herself with this collection of stories ranging far and wide in the queer teen community.    There’s a little bit of everything in this collection from boi, a well-drawn, agonizingly immediate story about a teen wrestling with gender identity and gender presentation to After Alex, a drama-filled, passionate break-up story. I think Peters has particular talent as a short story writer and this is another book that gives a wide representation to the queer experience.  I hope she works on another short story collection soon.

• Freak Show by James St. James (2007)

Believe me when I tell you: there is nothing like this on your YA shelves.  This is because, really, there is no one in AY fiction like Billy Bloom, the utterly fabulous drag queen/”gender obscurist” who stars in James St. James’s novel.  Billy comes to school in full drag, gives a book report as Zelda Fitzgerald, wears beehive wigs and glitter boas, and he never apologizes for who he is.  He runs for Homecoming Queen and implores his fellow students to embrace their own inner freak shows.  Funny, audacious, joyful, sweet, even!  This is an essential YA novel about what it means to be an awkward teenager who longs for more, about finding that dreamy boy, about rising above fitting in, about “the universal freak show” within us all.  (Please write another YA novel, James St. James!!)

• Kiss by Jacqueline Wilson (2010)

This British import is by Jacqueline Wilson, one of the grand dames of Brit kidlit, a writer who is exceptionally skilled at creating immediate, realistic stories about daily life.  It’s an interesting take on the “straight girl has a crush on her gay best friend!” convention, particularly because the friendship, the look at how friendships change and last, is so carefully and truthfully rendered.  I also have to mention that this is one of the very few titles with LGBTQ content that is suited for a middle grade audience.  The main characters have only recently turned 14 and it is very much appropriate for a middle school audience.  There’s a huge gap in the literature for books for this age group, so more are needed and always welcomed!

KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR

• I Am J by Cris Beam, forthcoming in 2011 from Little & Brown, I just finished the ARC of this book.  It’s an amazing, wonderful, powerful story about a FTM trans teenager.  Gonna be a great addition to the canon!

• Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens by Kathy Belge and Mark Bieschke, forthcoming in October from Zest Books.  More non-fiction, thankfully. (from the high quality non-fiction publisher Zest) This one looks great, it’s a bit of  everything from an activist’s handbook to a dating guide.  (Read about it in Zest’s Fall 2010 catalog)

And even after all this talk, I feel like I’ve only just begun!  There are so many others I want to recommend.  You know what that means … I’ll just have to make this a series.

So, until then, please feel free to chime in with your own new favorites and suggestions!

A few housekeeping notes.  For reasons you might expect, comments are now moderated.  Don’t despair if you don’t see your comment immediately appear, I’m getting to it right away.  And a big, heartfelt thanks to everyone who has recently encouraged and supported me and, more specifically, this blog.  It meant more than you probably know.

Next: I have a few YA book reviews to write about books that don’t directly relate to fat acceptance and body image but that I must write about, my love is so great.  HOWEVER, I also have an upcoming detailed review and critique of Sasha Paley’s Huge (like that awesome new cover with a big NO sign through the S’mores?  NO S’MORES FOR YOU, FAT-ASS!) which is the basis for the ABC Family Show Huge.  I haven’t seen the show yet (it’s on my summer to-watch list, I swear) but I’ve heard good things about it.  I hope it’s enjoyable and positive, which would make it much different than the book.  Here’s a sample of the closing lines of the book, wherein one of the fatties is fat no more and so, so happy!

“nothing — that Hershey’s Kiss included — was as sweet as being a brand-new skinny April.”

How sweet it is indeed! That’s all coming, stay tuned.  In the meantime, here’s a review of one of my favorite books of the year…

He grinned then, his dark eyes gleaming, and she lost any hope of turning and running before it was too late.  It was already too late.  Something about that wide, unrestrained smile. . .

If you were to ask me what my favorite “kind” of book is, (which is what a teenager would most commonly say) what my favorite “genre” was, (a more adult way of phrasing it, perhaps) I would be one of those infuriating people who says, “Oh, I like them all!”  But this would be true.  I honestly can’t think of a genre I won’t try: mysteries, horror, romance, realistic, non-fiction, graphic novels, and on and on and on.  More than that: I can’t think of a single genre I don’t have at least one beloved book in.  There’s really no scale in my mind: literary fiction down to bodice-rippers, I love ‘em all.  I’m not one of those people who says things like “I’m a big fantasy fan!” or “I hate paranormal books.”  I don’t actually think of it that way, I guess.  I am genre-venturous, let’s say.

Why am I starting my review of Mistwood off this way?  I guess because when I read it, every twist, every turn, every richly detailed plot point sunk me farther and farther into another book.  It was a hundred genres, a thousand stories, a million possibilities, each opening up on each other.  As I was falling into the romance, the fantasy, the mystery, the period detail, the coming of age story, all of these genres, all of these stories, in Leah Cypess’s beautiful book it occurred to me: these kind of books are my favorites.

Mistwood is the story of The Shifter, a magical creature who lives in the Mistwood and has one duty: to protect the kings of Samorna. The Shifter has been called to serve the crown prince Rokan, but when she awakes in the castle in the form of a girl named Isabel she finds holes in her memory.  Why had she returned to Mistwood?  Why has she been called back to court now?  What loyalty does she now owe Samorna and Rokan?  Who, exactly, is she?

What I Love About This Book

And you know?  I can just bet that first sentence made everyone reading this who says Eh, fantasy, not really my thing. tune out and think of puppies.

But wait!  Mistwood is so much more than that.  As Isabel starts trying to figure out her past, it’s a puzzlebox mystery that is expertly plotted.  When Isabel starts to consider the implications and costs of being The Shifter, it’s an aching coming of age story.  As Isabel tries to navigate the dangerous intricacies of court life, it’s a political thriller.  Sometimes, it’s even a romance of equals (my favorite) a romance of possibilities, passion, loyalty, and humor.  (but to tell more about that would be to spoil the pleasure of watching it evolve in the text!)

And I can’t really spoil or spell out any more of the plot, because so much of the pleasure of Mistwood is simply experiencing it: sinking into the entirely real and entirely foreign universe.  Like The Shifter, we are instantly caught up, unable to turn away.  Cypess’s writing is rich with detail and very precise.  It manages to be evocative but also clear, there’s no purple prose here, even when the narrative is in dramatic overdrive.

I was instantly drawn to Isabel, because for all the magic and intrigue and world-building, her story is the quintessential YA lit story.  What’s the quintessential YA lit story?  It’s about figuring out who you are, not just who everyone tells you that you are.  It’s about learning that being an adult means making tough choices that sometimes suck, that it means leaving behind easy moral universes for more complicated ones, with less “right” answers, but greater personal rewards.  Mistwood is all that, with an awesome side of magic, spells, and shape-shifting thrown in just as a bonus.

Recommended for: Fans of Kristin Cashore’s Graceling and Julia Golding’s Dragonfly, readers looking for a more nuanced and complicated fantasy narrative.  I’ve read some reviews that mention that girls will be more drawn to this, but I don’t think that’s exactly true:  the mystery, the intrigues of court life, action and chases – I think this has good cross-gender appeal.  And the romance?  Well, boys like that too, ya know, especially when it’s one as rich and rewarding as the one here.  This book will earn a wide audience and it deserves it.

–

Why don’t you go into your local library and check out Mistwood today?  If they don’t have a copy, request they buy one.

Visit Leah Cypess’s website for more information, including purchasing information.  The best news: she’s working on a companion novel to be released in 2011.  Awwwww, yeah!

(I might die if I don’t get an ARC of it at Midwinter…I had such a long, exciting conversation about the book with the Greenwillow/HarperCollins reps at their booth during Annual I missed out on loading up on any Harper ARCs … but it was worth it!)

First, thanks to all the amazing responses on my last blog, being linked from Courtney Summers own blog definitely made my week!  Using random.org the winner of my copy of Some Girls Are is Claire, hooorah, who I have contacted via e-mail.  If I don’t hear back from her, I’ll try again.  Definitely keep reading for more reviews and giveaways.

I loved Some Girls Are SO MUCH I wanted to *make sure* it was nominated for both the 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults list and the 2011 Quick Picks list, so I headed over to YALSA’s site to check out the current nominations list.

That’s where I saw one of the books nominated for a Quick Picks was the offensive and super problematic This is Why You’re Fat.  I really felt like I needed to write this open letter to the Quick Picks committee, trying to address some of the issues I think are worth discussing about this book and its possible inclusion on the final 2011 list.  I hope this gives people, both on the committee and in general, something to really think about and discuss!

Dear 2011 Quick Picks Committee:

First. let me thank all of you for your work on this committee.  Right now, I’m in the middle of my first term on a YALSA selection committee and I KNOW what hard and exciting work it is; how you start to think, for a few seconds, staring at a huge pile of books you have to read that maybe, just maybe, you might be getting sick of books right before a wave of euphoria at how many damn good books there are being published washes over you.  I know, too, the weight of the responsibility you feel: knowing these lists will be used by literally thousands of librarians and teachers across the entire country.

Because, of course, these selection lists mean something, it’s an honor to be on them, it helps sales, it gives authors traction, it’s something librarians can use when they are justifying purchases, it counts to be included.  That’s why I’d like all of you committee members to seriously think about what it means to include a book like This Is Why You’re Fat.

For those of you who don’t know This is Why You’re Fat is the book form of a blog.  Well, it was a tumblr, actually, and basically it was nothing more than pictures of “disgusting” food posted.  There was no witty commentary like there is at say, Cake Wrecks or Regretsy.  There was just pictures, thrown up on a tumblr dashboard, all under the moniker This is Why You’re Fat. You can’t see the blog/tumblr anymore because it’s been removed (by the creators)  but the pictures ranged from the infamous Krispee Kreme Hamburger to “giant” Oreos.

What this really was, though, was more of the continued fucked up messaging our culture gives about food, eating, and health.  See, we fatties get constantly told about how people are just trying to shame us because they care so much about our health. But if that’s the case, why wasn’t the tumblr called “This Is Why You’re Unhealthy” or, even, say, “This Is Why You Have Blocked Arteries!!!” Oh, right, because it wasn’t about that, it was about TEH FATZ!  The dreaded, disgusting, worst thing you could ever be: this, America, THIS IS WHY YOU’RE FAT!

I’d like to ask all of you who work with teens to take a moment to consider where a book like This Is Why You’re Fat fits in with teens who are suffering from disordered eating and looking for some thinspiration. If you’re not familiar with that term, it’s a word used within the pro-anorexia movement to describe tips, slogans, and, most especially, pictures that encourage continued weight loss and starvation.  And, yes, I just said pro-anorexia, otherwise known as the movement to promote anorexia as a “lifestyle choice” and not a disease.

You can Google thinspiration or thinspo or pro-ana, if you’d like.  Here’s some of what you’ll find: pictures of girls showing off their rib cages, posters sharing tips about how to go for long periods of time without eating, posts of “before and after” pictures of celebrities where you can see wrist bones and clavicles sticking out, and posters positively encouraging each other as they become sicker and sicker.  There’s even many YouTube videos to go with the pictures.  It’s not hard to find, it’s not inaccessible, the most you might ever have to do is register for a free forum or click a button PROMISING you are 18.  You can literally find dozens of examples in one Google search.  Just this week the American Journal of Public Health posted a comprehensive analysis of pro-ana and pro-mia websites, finding that 91% of these sites had public access.

And who is doing all that Googling?  Statistics show it’s mostly teenage girls.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Eating Disorders Association, and the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, one in five women has an eating disorder or disordered eating, and 90% of these women are aged 12 to 25. Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents.

And while it’s not pictures of models with their shoulder blades poking through their skin, a book like This Is Why You’re Fat is MADE for thinspiration.  It acts as motivation, inspiration, and a driving force to adolescents who are desperate for justification about their “lifestyle” choices and on the hunt for visual proof to keep them vigilant about not eating.  This is re-enforcement of the worst, most harmful kind of thinking: don’t eat cookies, donuts, bacon, ice cream, hamburgers, cheese, meat, bread: don’t  eat it because  this is why you’re fat! FOOD IS WHY YOU’RE FAT. This has real-life consequences.  (I know, I must have said that phrase about 20 million times on this blog, but it’s a really important context to put these things in, a frame, and it needs to be said and repeated.)

Am I taking this to the extreme?  Probably.  But that’s the entire premise of the book, isn’t it?  The thought process behind the pro-ana and pro-mia movements?  Dealing with extreme ends of the spectrum, thought taken to its most grotesque and overwhelming ends?  That’s how they end up being so perfectly, nightmarishly suited for each other, this book and thinspiration within the pro-ana and pro-mia world. Maybe only one in five teenagers might see this book and get “food is why you’re fat!” from it (although I would argue this is the not so thinly disguised premise from the start) but the point is: we know there’s that one in five teenager out there.  And that the one in five figure is probably a  modest estimate.   What are we saying to them?

Thousands of libraries across the country will purchase This Is Why You’re Fat if it is selected as a 2011 Quick Pick.  That means even more teenagers will have access to it, will see it on library shelves.  What messages will they be getting from it?  That they should try to live “more healthy lives” or that eating a burger is what has made them so disgustingly fat? Is that none of our concern as librarians?  Does that have nothing to do with the books we chose, from the thousands published every year, as worthy of this distinction and honor?

I see that selection criteria for Quick Picks informational titles includes “Accuracy” and “Objectivity.”  I know that you, as a committee, will be sitting down to discuss all these nominations during Annual.  As a fellow librarian who works with teens, a YALSA member, and a librarian who uses YALSA’s lists for collection development, I’d like to ask you to really consider and discuss if This IS Why You’re Fat is either accurate OR objective.

What we do matters, don’t you think?  I do, it’s why I do it, after all.  I don’t think that this book shouldn’t exist, that it should be pulled from all library shelves and bookstores.  But I think it’s worth questioning what purpose it serves, what audiences it is geared for, and what purpose we, as a librarians, would serve by selecting it as a 2011 Quick Pick.

Thanks for your time and hard work on the committee.  Like so many other librarians, I appreciate all your work and I do know, first hand, what a significant commitment it is.  I know you don’t take that commitment lightly and I thank you for taking the time to read and really consider my thoughts and point of view.

I hope to see you at Annual,

-Angie Manfredi

“We’re the kind of popular that parents like to pretend doesn’t exist so they can sleep at night, and we’re the kind of popular that makes our peers unable to sleep at night.  Everyone hates us, but they’re afraid of us too.”

At least, that’s the kind of popular Regina Afton used to be.  But this?  This is a freeze-out.

I was a mean girl in high school.  (yes, a mean fat girl.  I know, a head-spinner.) I know that term has kind of lost its sting after the movie, after Tina Fey turned it into a punchline.  Don’t get me wrong, I like that movie a lot too, but it’s a comedy, a good comedy, yeah, but it’s a haha look at “mean girls” in high school.  Ah, how quickly we forget.  There’s nothing haha about it.  The Booklist review suggested this book was good for libraries “where Gossip Girl maintains a loyal following” … but there’s nothing glossy, glamorous, or deliciously soap operatic about the betrayals and hurts in this book: that’s what makes them sting.

Courtney Summers’s Some Girls Are is a look at what mean girls are really like, what it REALLY takes to hang with the most popular and most ruthless girls in high school, the ones that make it impossible for their peers to sleep at night.  It is a raw, riveting, unforgettable look at what it means to suffer through high school hell and still have the courage and determination to not give up.  It’s an amazing book.

Regina is part of the clique that runs her school but after one party goes very wrong and she tells the wrong person about what happened, the group quickly turns on her.  Some Girls Are is the story of how Regina faces high school, and her own past sins, in the aftermath of this incident as her friends quickly go about making her life hell.

And make no mistakes: Regina has done wrong.  Kara, the girl in her group who betrays her, was previously humiliated and  ignored by Regina.  Interestingly, Summers suggests that Kara’s (serious) disordered eating was encouraged by Regina’s pressure.  (acting on behalf of Anna, the Queen of their clique.)

Everyone knows Kara used to be fat until the second half of tenth grade, when she learned to stick her fingers down her throat and started popping diet pills.  She had to wear a wig in her class photo because she was losing her hair; you can see it if you look really closely.  It was the pills or the purging.  And those were only suggestions, anyway.

It’s not like I told her she had to do that to herself. (pg. 28)

Wow.  This is an amazing passage that confronts the real-life consequences of all that supposedly harmless body snarking and constant peer pressure regarding weight and looks that happens all too frequently among teens.  Regina has other memories of how badly she treated Kara:

I stood next to her at Ford’s while she bought the over-the-counter diet pills.  And then, from that point on, I watched her melt.  It made Anna happy. (pg. 86)

Kara didn’t just “think she looked fat in these jeans!” – didn’t just say one or hear one negative thing about her weight: she realized that her standing in the group depended on how she looked and decided that standing was worth her health.  This happens more than we’d like to admit, as adults who work with teens, as adults who live in a culture that constantly tells us “just a few pounds more!” and it’s part of what I liked best about this book.

What I Love About This Book

The list could go on forever: The prose!  The characters!  The tension!  The messed up, compelling, utterly irresistible romance!  But, really, all of that comes down to one thing: IT TELLS THE TRUTH.

The truth, the truth I remember, is that high school can be a blood sport.  It was not a laughing matter.  The truth was that adults can look the other way, that the  people you think are your friends can turn on you in the blink of an eye if the “mood” goes against you, that all it takes is a few words to make someone’s life hell.  There’s no looking away from what happens to Regina OR what Regina, herself, did.

There are big questions with no easy answers in this narrative: Regina did terrible things (not the least of them how she pressures, shames, and guilts Kara when it comes to her weight) and now terrible things are being done to Regina.  What I love about this complication is that there’s not an easy answer to if this is fair…  it’s a question that doesn’t really have one answer, just the kind of question teens deserve to be asked more often.  (What else do I love?  Regina doesn’t remain a passive, helpless victim in this cycle: she remembers how the game is played and strikes back in anger and even physically.  Now the story is even more complicated: is it “right” or justified that she does this?  What are the consequences of this striking back?  Can this self-perpetuating cycle ever be broken?  Another big question!)

Summers makes everything happening to Regina feel so immediate, so helpless, so suffocating, that when Regina actually connects with someone else,  a boy named Michael she helped ostracize, their connection feels like a lifeline: urgent, confusing, and vital.  This makes their connection seem tangible and real and oh-so irresistible.  To me, this is 100x more dramatic than some 100 year old vampire.

Everything about this book feels so damn true.

Recommended for: All public libraries and all high school libraries, content and language make this definitely a high school level book.  Also recommended for reluctant readers and fans of realistic stories with a edge.

Comment for a Chance to WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK!

I hope you can’t wait to read this book!  If you’ve already read it, I hope to hear your thoughts and opinions about it in the comments!   St. Martin’s Press generously provided me with this copy and my library already has a copy, so I’m going to use random.org to select a random winner from the comments.  It could be you!  And if you don’t win, why don’t you go into your local library today and see if they have a copy.  If they don’t, request they buy one.

As for me: I can’t wait to see what Courtney Summers writes next.

“Keep the humiliation coming in the comments, it motivates me.”

At the end of February, John Green posted this vlog.  Watching it made my skin crawl, but the quick response of his Nerdfighter-fandom (creating the pizza shirt, several admins of one of his largest fansites posing wearing it their profile pics on said fansite, “hilarious” responses in the YouTube comments-section filled with “fake” insults like: “Keep your chins up, land whale.” and “You are sick!!!! Gross, huge. TOO MUCH FOOD! You are disgusting!!!!!”) made it even worse.

For my readers who may not be familiar: John Green is a ROCK STAR in YAlit.  (one of his friends, the author Maureen Johnson, told me that being out on tour with him was like being with “the nerdy Beatles.”  I can totally see this.) He won the most important award in the field (the Printz Award) for his first book when he was just 28 years old.  Besides the writing, he does the hugely successful vlogbrothers project and has a devoted fanbase known as nerdfighters.  And, also, he’s awesome.  Let me just state that right away. 

I adore him.  I have all three of his books autographed, I think he’s an incredibly talented author, I think Looking for Alaska is a modern classic and will still be read and loved by teenagers in 20 years, I think he’s an ally and advocate for social justice and equality.  I have a poster of a quote from Looking for Alaska hanging up in the teen section of my library and I always will, because it’s powerful, meaningful text.  I have teared up when hearing him speak about his dedication to teenager’s inner lives and the importance literature can have in said inner lives.

And he completely, utterly, fucked up here.  It’s important to acknowledge this.  It’s important to say this.  It’s important to let our allies know when they have let us down.

When you search for this video, here are just a few of the sites that link to it: Gold Coast Personal Training, Weight Loss for Women Site, and No Chubby Hubby.  What ads do you see when you watch it?  What videos does YouTube suggest for you?  Are the they ones about diets that promise you can lose 40 pounds overnight?  That’s what *I* saw.  This isn’t ad spam, it isn’t random.

Watching this vlog, I knew he was joking, I knew he was being ironic.  I mean, gosh, can’t I take a joke?  Don’t I know better?  Don’t I understand when someone is just teasing?  Can’t I just give him the benefit of the doubt?   And yet.  I still felt a “hipster racism” vibe all over it.  (what’s hipster racism?  As A.J. Plaid, writing at Racialicious so eloquently puts it: “I define hipster racism (I’m borrowing the phrase from Carmen Van Kerckhove) as ideas, speech, and action meant to denigrate another’s person race or ethnicity under the guise of being urbane, witty (meaning “ironic” nowadays), educated, liberal, and/or trendy.”) In short: John Green, because he “knows better” than to think humiliation ever actually works as motivation, is ironically laughing at the idea.

And yet this idea, that fat people can just be shamed into losing weight, that all they really need is some good old-fashioned public humiliation (don’t worry, this is actually for their own good!) is one of the oldest and most UN-ironic schools of thought.  And besides all that?   It’s just not true. (believe me, our culture does nothing but try to make fat people feel ashamed.  Ashamed to exist, to be walking around, to expect clothes that fit, to eat in public, ashamed!  If that’s all it took to lose weight, no one would be fat.) It’s not true and, here’s the key part: it has harmful, real-life consequences.

In February, a Cambridge University study found that half of the six year old girls surveyed (repeat: six years old) wished they were thinner.   Where are six year old children getting messaging like that from?  This messaging is part of our culture, is where.   It’s perpetuated by hilarious Facebook groups  (it’s all in good fun!) dedicated to telling a public figure how fat he is, dedicated to posting every picture they can find of said public figure eating food.  (gross, eating food.  That’s such a fat person thing to do!)  And when that same public figure joins the fray by encouraging this atmosphere by, indeed, saying that humiliation is welcome: it only makes it worse.

This, by the way, is all without scratching the surface of the fact that this public figure is also well-known and well-loved among teenagers, a demographic that  truly struggles with body image issues. (in 2008 the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology found that approximately 10 in 100 teenage girls suffer from an eating disorder.) When I watched that vlog, as a fat person, I felt that momentary prick of shame you always feel, even when you fight it, of someone vaguely humiliating/embarrassing you.  If I were more motivated, if I were more humiliated, I could lose 15 pounds like John Green.  He doesn’t seem to mind the teasing, he thinks it’s funny.  I guess it is kind of funny.  I’m probably just being too serious about it.  I shouldn’t mind, everyone is just trying to help me, why do I have to be so uptight about it? I couldn’t help but wonder what John Green’s fat teenage fans thought, what his fans who have complicated, disordered relationships with food and eating thought of the video, of the ritual humiliation he seems so delighted to take part in.

Just in case it’s not clear: I’m not trying to chase John Green out of town with pitchforks, I’m not swearing off everything he ever does and saying all anorexia is his fault and he wants fatties to cry.  What I am saying is: none of this takes place in a vacuum, all of this contributes to a negative climate.  If you don’t believe me, think of the last time you heard someone you know, a friend, a casual acquaintance, a co-worker, a family member, say something casually negative and hurtful about their weight:  I look so fat in this!  I’m such a pig!  I need to lose 10 pounds! If you work with teens, think of a time you heard a teenager say something like this to you.

John Green is not fat.  John Green was never fat. Nerdfighters out there, you want to “decrease suck” and “increase awesome”?  Well, this is how.  Fight this. Take off the PIZZA shirt and stop giggling behind your hands about this.  Pretending that “But John Green was never fat, hah!” is ”part of the joke” is insulting to REAL LIFE fat people and it’s feeding into a culture that teaches us to hate our bodies and feel that if we are anything less than “perfect” we deserve to be humiliated and shamed.  After all, that’s good motivation, right?