Life in the Fat Lane Review

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(More customer reviews)OK, I confess: I'm a 30 - year old mother with a career, and I'm still reading teenage fiction. How sad is that? Not at all, actually, when it's written as well as this book. Imagine: you are lovely Lara, Little Miss Popular, Homecoming Queen. Life is sweet. Mammy's rich and Daddy is good looking. Your boyfriend is deep and sensitive(even if not quite as popular as the one you dumped last year). You are friends with the cool crowd and wonder on occasions if your best friend Molly, who has a tendency to speak her mind and carries a few pounds too many, matches up. But you are a good girl, who offers Molly and other plump unfortunates condescending advice on how to improve themselves. And then you get fat. Not just a little overweight, but really, massively fat.Even without eating anything .Your positive attitude and discipline don't seem to help. Suddenly you are at the receiving end of pitying glances and "helpful" advice.You are no longer cool or cute. Your boyfriend still loves you but"just isn't in love anymore..." This excellent and inventive book deals with the inner turmoil of a Prom Queen's descent into fat hell. What I liked best was that the author resolutely refuses all easy cop outs. Lara now knows how fat people feel, but it makes her no wiser.The fat girl that she has patronised doesn't suddenly become her best friend. No, she visits Lara in hospital and gloats at her misfortune. Lara doesn't fall in love with the fat boy at her new school, they don't go on a diet and live happily ever after. But Lara does learn to live with her condition and learns a few hard lessons in the process. The quality of the writing is superb. All in all, a worthwhile book not only for adolescents.

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So Much Closer Review

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(More customer reviews)Brooke has had a crush on Scott Abrams forever, but he barely knows she exists. When she finally gets up the courage to tell him how she feels, she's shocked to discover that his family is moving from their New Jersey suburb to New York City. Brooke is devastated--until she comes up with the perfect solution. She'll move in with her dad, who lives in the city, for senior year and track Scott down. And her plan works perfectly--she's practically Scott's neighbor in New York--until she discovers that Scott has wasted no time in getting himself a girlfriend in their new neighborhood. But luckily for Brooke, the city is packed with opportunities and she's not about to give up on having the year of her life.

So Much Closer is a fun, romantic, and endearing novel with a terrific setting. Colasanti describes New York vividly, with an eye for the unexpected details that really make the Brooke's neighborhood come to life with energy, and invites the reader right in. Brooke is a very dynamic narrator, and her narrative is very fun, relatable, and authentic. She's naturally smart and talented, but she's never been pushed to do well or pursue academic goals, which is frustrating to those around her. She's full of contempt for the school systems she has been through, but when she gets to the city, becomes friends with John (a cute guy who is driven but struggles academically), is pushed by good teachers, and inspired by her environment, she begins to grow and realize her foolishness in wasting her talents. This is a great coming-of-age story as Brooke not only finds Scott and figures out what it's like to get what you want and discover that maybe it's not all that you has hoped, but as she also deals with her parents' divorce and her feelings about it and finds her passion in life. So Much Closer is an unexpected, funny, and real novel that is charged with energy and life. Once again, Colasanti doesn't disappoint.

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When Brooke's crush, Scott, moves from their suburban town to New York City, she decides to follow him there. Living with her formerly estranged dad and adapting to a new school are challenging, and things go from bad to worse when Brooke learns that Scott already has a girlfriend. But as she builds her new life, Brooke begins to discover a side of herself she never knew existed. And as she finds out, in the city that never sleeps, love can appear around any corner...

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