I’m the fat Puerto Rican–Polish girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve always been too much and yet not enough.
Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home—cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.
When Sugar meets Even (not Evan—his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.
Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her
My Review:
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
3 1/2 Platypires for Sugar by Deidre Riordan Hall
"She’s the same girl who, because of the absence of care, concern, and kindness, put on a shield made of donuts, cookies, and cakes to hide from the pain of dismissal, of being told that she is less than valuable and that she’s utterly unlovable."
Ahhhhhhhhh! I am a bag of emotions about this book. Just damn. I read it all in one day because I couldn't put it down. One minute I was really loving it. I'm a big girl so I could relate to Sugar in so many ways and her story hit close to home. The author has this keen ability to make you feel what Sugar life is like. So even though the reader might not be plus sized this book will have you experience why and how she got that way with understanding and not harsh judgment. The book is more than just an obese girl finding her path. It's also a love story and Even (his illiterate father misspelled his name at the time of his birth) was just wonderful but maybe too wonderful. I really liked him but he came across as too good to be true. Mature beyond his years. Can a person like that exist? Maybe but he was a tad too perfect even though he came from a troubled home. I think I would have liked it more if he was a little bit more flawed.
I also felt that some scenes were very neatly packaged, meaning they were really beyond belief. Not saying certain scenarios couldn't happen but maybe not all at the same time.
Then without giving away spoilers there was a scene where I yelled and almost threw my kindle. I shed some tears and was not happy. Hence my docking 1/2 a star/platypire. That's all I'm gonna say on that matter.
Overall, I did like the story and want to read more from the author.
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