Le sigh. I wanted to love this one so much. The concept appealed to me on a ton of personal levels, and I was anxious to see what direction it took. I feel like some of the problems I had with the book are almost opposite of problems that others have had. For instance, I have seen a lot of reviewers completely shocked that a grandmother would bribe her granddaughter to lose weight. That didn't shock me in the least. In fact, I know a few of you knew about my BEA dilemma- that I hadn't lost enough weight for my mom to agree to pay for it- and how devastated I was, that even though I had worked to lose it, it wasn't enough. So yeah. Ashley's story is a real thing, and it does happen. If you are appalled by it, good. Thank you. I appreciate your outrage. You're right!
I enjoyed the setup of the book, basically. The part where we learn Ashley's history, the story behind her grandmother's ridiculousness, Ashley's perfectionism, her awesome friends, and her family dynamic, as well as the weight stuff.
But then... I don't know, it really lost momentum along the way for me. The story took some kind of random, kind of ridiculous/unbelievable turns. I can't really say what happens of course, but it didn't feel like it had much to do with the original story at hand.
There was romance, but not a ton of it. There were two guys, but I assure you it was not a triangle, so that's good news. I just wasn't super invested in either one, but they were both pretty stand up, decent guys, so at least that part wasn't terribly annoying.
My problem with this book was pretty much threefold:
- The aforementioned random plots. These really could have been left out and nothing would have been lost from the book. In fact, maybe had the random side plots been fewer, I would have had more of a connection to Ashley. Which I did not.
- I got kind of bored/didn't care. It wasn't that I wasn't worried about the outcome it was just that it seemed to take a long time to get there. And I wasn't feeling much emotion from Ashley, which made it even harder for me to care about her. Like, I was genuinely more concerned about her friend than I was about Ashley for a good portion of the story, and I doubt that was the point.
- (And this is kind of the biggest) I really don't see a physician in good standing even consenting to perform a bariatric surgery on a teenager with no other health problems who isn't even that overweight. Add to that that it's abundantly clear that Ashley doesn't want this surgery, and it would be even less likely. There's usually a significant amount of counseling to ensure patient cooperation and motivation. Proof? Yeah, I have that.
Bottom Line: Look, I like what the author is trying to do here, and I absolutely agree that families can play huge (and often quite negative) roles in our self confidence, how we feel about our appearance, etc. I love that Ashley was so successful, and that we were taken on her journey. I just can't look past the meandering story and implausibilities.
*Copy provided by publisher for review