Starfish

This is beautiful, and though marketed as a book for a younger audience, can be one older readers love and appreciate too. It's about loving yourself when you're told not to - about regaining your freedom, your identity, and your confidence. Not only is this a debut, but it's an incredibly important commentary on the need we feel to look a certain way. Absolutely astounded, Fipps.

This is so raw and upsetting and real. I didn't realize when I started this book that it was written in verse. It moves very fast and I read it in one setting. One of the best youth novels I've read this year.

This book is written in verse and only took about an hour and half to read, but I know Ellie's story will stick with me for a long time.

Ellie is kind and thoughtful tween who wants her family and her peers to see her as a human. She is overweight, and no one seems to be able to look past that. Instead, her mother, her siblings, and her peers decide that bullying her and passive aggressively sharing articles about obesity will “fix her”, as if she is an inherently broken person. The scenes of bullying that Ellie endures are painful to read and become even more painful when you read the author's note that all of these incidents were based on the author's childhood experiences.

There is hope for Ellie, though, from her new friend and her father. Her father encourages her to see a therapist, who helps Ellie transform her thoughts.

This is a book that should be read by everyone, regardless of age. It delves into the cruelty that kids face every day and illustrates how the people who are supposed to love us the most can be the cruelest. This books get 4.5 stars for me because I felt it did not adequately address that the tormenting Ellie's mother put her through is a form of abuse. While it is possible to choose to love and forgive those who hurt us, the depth of Ellie's mother's abuse was not fully addressed and I felt her mother got off far too easy.