The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
By Carolyn Mackler
Cambridge, Candlewick, 2003, 246 pgs.
Virginia Shreves is an overweight teenager. Unfortunately, she defines herself as fat and nothing else. Virginia feels like an outcast in her family. Her brother, sister, father, and mother are all thin, dark-haired and attractive. Virginia has blond hair and is well, not thin. Her mother forces her to see nutrition specialists and Virginia takes one diet too far. However, Virginia does have a flair for writing lists. She writes the Fat Girl Code of Conduct, rules she feels she has to follow with guys because of her weight. Rule number one is: “Sexual activity is a secret. No public displays of affection. No air-kisses blown across the cafeteria. No carefully folded notes passed in the hall. No riding the moped in public.” The ‘moped’ Virginia refers to comes from a joke she heard about the commonality between fat girls and mopeds: they’re both fun to ride, as long as your friends don’t see you. Virginia actually has a boy interested in her, Froggy Welsh the Fourth but she believes he will never want to be her boyfriend and that all he likes is making out with her in private.
In a surprising twist of events, Virginia discovers her brother Byron is not what he seems. She has always idolized him growing up but when he is sent home from college at Columbia for date rape, Virginia’s world is turned upside down. She is sick over what her brother has done, stops dieting, and starts to become rebellious toward her parents who still show Byron unwarranted favoritism. Virginia uses her savings to buy a plane ticket to Seattle in order to visit a friend for Thanksgiving though her parents have forbidden her to go. When she is in Seattle, Virginia gets her eyebrow pierced, which is another hard trick to swallow for her mother the teen psychologist. Then in a third act of rebellion and self expression, Virginia dies her hair bright purple for a holiday party to match a dress her mother doesn’t like.
In the end, Virginia comes to accept herself for who she is, despite what her parents think of her weight. She starts a webzine at her school called Earthquack and kisses Froggy Welsh the Fourth in public, because he actually wants her to. In the meantime, she finally earns her mother’s respect.
On several occasions while reading this book, I closed it and said, “Oh my God that’s so awful! It breaks my heart!” My heart really went out to Virginia Shreves. I’ve always weighed slightly more than most of my peers so I really understood what she was going through and I wanted to tell her, “you’re wonderful just the way you are!” I’m sure I’m not the only reader that will think that when reading this novel. When I picked this book, I was expecting much more tongue-in-cheek humor and was surprised at the shockingly serious plot developments such as Byron’s date rape case. I think this book would appeal to just about every teen girl with low self esteem (which is almost all of them). The cover is flashy but the title will definitely draw readers in. I didn’t really see any weaknesses in this book so I give it a 5Q and a 3P VOYA rating.
No comments:
Post a Comment