To Be Honest

by Maggie Ann Martin

Savannah is dreading being home alone with her overbearing mother after her big sister - and best friend - goes off to college. But if she can just get through senior year, she'll be able to escape to college, too. What she doesn't count on is that her mother's obsession with weight has only grown deeper since her appearance on an extreme weight-loss show, and now Savvy's mom is pressuring her even harder to be constantly mindful of what she eats.

Between her mum's diet-helicoptering, missing her sister, and worrying about her collegiate future, Savvy has enough to worry about. And then she meets George, the cute new kid at school who has insecurities of his own. As Savvy and George grow closer, they help each other discover how to live in the moment and enjoy the here and now before it disappears.

• ISBN10: 1250309190
• ISBN13: 9781250309198
• Publish Date: 20 August 2019 (first published 1 September 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 7 June 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[leahrosereads]

Fast, fun(ish) read that I wish went a bit deeper into a lot of the topics discussed here. It all felt really surface level - the fatphobia, eating disorder, and family dynamics (including the emotional abuse) weren't explored as well as they could be.

Normally, I'm all for shorter books, but I think this needed at least another 100 pages to really get into everything that was mentioned here. There were all of these really heavy topics plus a romance, and none of was written to completion.

[Sam@WLABB]

I will alway support a book that promotes body positivity, and this one also happened to feature a main character I totally fell in love with.

• Pro: Savannah was too fabulous, and charmed the pants off me. She was smart and full of life. She was driven, confident, and lots of fun. I absolutely loved her, and I loved her, because she loved herself. No approval needed.

• Pro: The sisterhood Savannah shared with Ashley was really wonderful. These two were pretty adorable together, and supported each other through their parents' divorce and their mother's weight loss journey. They were so much more than sisters to one another, they were best friends, and even though Ashley was away at college, she was there when Savannah really needed her.

• Pro: I really found George sort of adorable, and the scenes he shared with Savannah were precious. I loved his nerdy t-shirts, his pineapple pizza, and his musical prowess.

• Con: This may just be me, but there were some loose ends, and some of the resolutions seemed a little rushed, but I still really enjoyed all these subplots and just wanted more.

• Pro: I really liked the way Martin challenged the reality weight loss industry. Those shows have created unreasonable standards and expectations for people, and it was an interesting way to explore healthy/unhealthy weight loss as well as the impossible beauty standards that exist.

• Pro: The fat rep was pretty great. Martin really touched on those things, which I think a lot of people, who have never been overweight are not aware of. Your jiggly bits being exposed and touching someone else, not being able to shop in the same store as your thin friend, being made to feel self-conscience when you eat in front of people, being thought of as invisible or "less than", because you don't fit the size-0 beauty standard.

• Pro: Grace and Savannah were a great team, and I always love a healthy and positive female friendship.

Overall: A rather charming and heartwarming story of family, friendship, and loving yourself.

*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

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[layawaydragon]

Content Warning: Eating Disorder w/ Hospital Stay (this is NOT the protagonist but her mom), Emotional & Psychological Child Abuse/Neglect

>>Fat girl on the cover!!!!!
>>Savannah is great. She's withstood her mother's bullshit and is firmly body positive, but does come with insecurities and defense mechanisms. I love how she put herself out there and did the work of progress. She's forced to live and deal with an unhealthy mom that's honestly cruel to her and struggling with mental health issues.
>>Great fat & anxiety rep
>>I love how the shallow, competitive "health" bullshit is put on blast where it belongs.
>>The eating disorder is handled well. I haven't had the same type tho so YMMV.
>>I think her mom was crafted and portrayed well. She's got a tragic event in the past and damage from growing up fat. She does love her daughters but clearly plays favorites and tries to "fix" Savannah. She's very relatable and understandable but not clean and easily forgiven to me. She's a victim of the TV show praying on people, but she's also emotionally and verbally abusive and neglectful. She does have a mental illness but she has to own to her actions and their effect.
>>Grace is a GREAT friend. I adore her.
>>George is a sweet, shy, musical nerd that likes to eat his foot every now and again. It's nice to see a guy that isn't the typical sex crazed, emotionally stunted posturing fool.
>>The dress shopping worried me, but it was a dream of a scene. Love loved it.
>>I was totally with Savannah the whole way through. From her reactions to George, her dad, the journalism story, Grace, etc.
>>I love how she's good at math, but it's not the end all be all. She chooses and excels at her passion which happens to be humanities, not STEM.
>> I love the journalism investigation, interviews, and turn out. It's really cute and heartening.
>>Dad was a let down at first and I really didn't think I'd change my mind about him, but I did.
>>Totally would read more of Savannah, prequels, sequels, short stories, w/e. And her sister and Yael too! I'm really curious what would happen next. This book is wrapped up nicely and it's great, but there's threads to follow for more content that's worthwhile IMHonestO. (---That abbreviation would be a great next title maybe?!?)

Not So Great Things:
>>I do wish there was more therapy and apology shown from her mom. More acknowledgement on how badly her mom (and her enabling sister) treated her, making her cave and hide when her mom was in the wrong the whole time. I hope Savannah would get therapy too. She's fine on the page, but living through that causes real deep scars and shit. Making it so easy for her mom feels like a cave in to the fatphobic society because "it's about health, she's wasn't that bad!". Yes, yes she was. It has nothing to do with health. Stop excusing abusive harmful shit. Her mom has to confront, cope, and change to properly deal with her mental illness. Letting her off the hook doesn't help anyone.
>>I feel bad the second place people did a story on immigration and the winning story was about sexism, money and abuse of power. Totally realistic, but given the current events with Trump Camps, bans, ICE, and white feminism...I just feel uncomfortable with it. Kinda wish the immigrant story had won or more about it was included, like having Savannah and Grace talking to the other students at least instead of a one line throwaway.
>>Ugh, Eminem. Look, I loved him growing up a loooong time ago but I've gotten better. Savannah is a huge fan and there's not a single moment of acknowledging how problematic and offensive the he is. Even when I was a die hard fan that defended him, I felt like shit with his fatphobic and sexist lyrics. I find it hard to believe she'd be that ignorant and not have any qualms or second thoughts about it. I'm surprised there was no angsty blasting of his music. But maybe that last part is me projecting.


Quotes:

She thought Yael was cute - Sister is gay, have w/w relationship

"Has anyone told you you'd make the perfect Miss Frizzle in a Magic School Bus reboot?" he asked, smirking a tiny bit.

"Very few people get to witness Savannah Shady. You should feel honored."

"I know that parents shouldn't be allowed to make their kids feel like shit unless they buy into their culty dogma"

"Like I'd known him for years, like we'd put a bookmark in our friendship and we were picking up where we left off.

"They should put a warning on all clarinet cases: May Cause Sexual Tension."

"She'd even called ahead to make sure that the stores we ended up going to carried my size of dresses, which took off another level of stress from my plated."

"My goal today was to find a short dress that looked as if it was made for a fun-size, five-foot-tall human."