Fat Chance, Charlie Vega | Book Review

My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Title: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

Author: Crystal Maldonado

Format: eBook – borrowed (Overdrive Library)

Pages: 308

Publication Date: 2/2/21

Publisher: Holiday House

Categories: Teen/Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Body Image, Family, Friendship, Dating, Coming of Age

Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.
Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

Love the message for girls and guys in here about body image and loving yourself no matter what size you are, no matter what skin color you are, no matter who you love. Charlie has to live with a mom who has chosen a fitness lifestyle and is trying to get Charlie to do the same. It causes Charlie’s self-esteem to take a beating and her relationship with her mom is strained. It was very relatable. It’s hard growing up in a family that points out every time you gain weight, I can definitely relate!
Charlie deals with a lot of body issues but the one thing she excels at is her writing, which is fantastic. I love that she has that outlet for her creative ideas and she’s good at it.
Charlie and her best-friend Amelia have an amazing relationship until Charlie finds a boyfriend. But they have a long hard talk about what came between them and I love that they had this moment. Charlie needed to speak her truth and Amelia as well. I love that even though they took some time apart, the came back together, maturely and talked it out. That’s what makes a friendship grow, when you can get through the rough parts.
Charlie’s romance with Brian is sweet because it starts as a friendship and I love that for her. Even the drama that came with it was realistic, especially because Charlie has some emotional issues to deal with that have nothing to do with Brian.
The cast of characters are quite diverse in this story, Charlie is half white/puerto rican. Brian is Korean with two mothers, and Amelia is black and pansexual.

Triggers: grief, fatphobia
Charlie’s mom really gets on Charlie to adopt a healthy lifestyle and to lose weight. It comes between them a lot. At times her mom seems to understand where Charlie is coming from and then the next scene it’s back to normal, shoving diet drinks in Charlie’s face. Even after Charlie lets her know how she feels, I felt like her mom didn’t truly get it.
The beginning was slow for me, it was turning out to be just an okay read for me because it seemed liked a story that was only about Charlie’s self-image but the second half of the book is where it gets really good and emotional.

Charlie Vega, despite her weight and self-image issues comes out shining in this story. She goes through some challenges with her mother, her first attempt at dating and best friend drama but she gets her happy ending. This book is great for teens and young adults because it’s totally relatable. I enjoyed this one, even though I thought it had a slow start, the second half came through with lots of emotion.

💛 ~ Yolanda

Quotes from the book:

Slingshot | ARC Review

My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Title: Slingshot

Author: Mercedes Helnwein

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 352

Publication Date: 4/27/21

Categories: Young Adult, Mature Situations, Romance, Family, Abuse, Boarding School, Coming of Age, Contemporary

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

An exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi

Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beat up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever…because now there is this boy she never asked for. Wade Scholfield.

With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thoughts.

So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million tiny pieces? And what are her options when she finally realizes that 1. The universe doesn’t revolve around her, and 2. Wade has been hiding a dark secret. Is Grace the only person unhinged enough to save him?

Acidly funny and compulsively readable, Mercedes Helnwein’s debut novel Slingshot is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, friendship, stupidity, sex, bad poetry, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

Grace is a MESS. She’s 15, at a boarding school, unlikable, mean, a jerk, lacking social skills, says whatever she wants to say usual not caring about the consequences and she doesn’t believe in love. In a way she’s courageous, for not giving a crap but in lots of ways she’s afraid (of love) but wouldn’t admit it out loud until Wade and even Beth comes into her life. Also, she and her mom are her dad’s secret family so it’s no wonder she doesn’t believe in love. The blurb says “acidly funny” and all that acid comes from Grace haha!
Watching Grace navigate all her emotions was riveting and I could not put the book down. She’s all over the place. This girl is in love with her teacher then hates him when she finds out she was basically delusional about it. She pretty much scars a guy she hates, then sleeps with him and then unknowingly breaks his heart. If she went to my high school, this girl would have been getting into a lot of fights – she’s that girl. Despite her psychotic tendencies – I related to her thoughts about relationships, falling in love and sex because the relationships I saw growing up were totally dysfunctional too.
As for the romance with Wade ~ they start off as unlikely friends. Then best of friends into the possibility of something more and then into love. So it wasn’t instant which was nice, because Grace has a lot of issues but it was a sweet spot in the book. Wade is a good guy but we don’t know much about him until almost the ending. His life is complicated too.
Bittersweet ending – in true fashion, Grace falls for Wade, has this amazing time with him and it all comes crashing down. One thing is for sure with Grace, who basically hates everyone…she doesn’t hate Wade. And because Wade is so good, she learns to open up a bit…even make some friends and let some in. It’s not a total happy ending but realistic? I think so.

Triggers: student/teacher crush (one-sided), abuse, bullying
Grace crushes on her Bio teacher – hard. She thinks he reciprocates her feelings but ugh…he surely does not. And she basically does crazy stuff to him because she’s angry at him (breaks his pencils, writes him notes, tells him off) ~ this is how we are introduced to Grace and honestly from then on, I knew she needed therapy! This might turn people off to this book right away but seriously, it’s all one-sided.
Kind of bummed that Grace let all her grades go because of that whole teacher crush heartbreak – obviously this girl is SMART just lacking so much social skills and is almost hungrily studying others around her, hating them, judging them, needing praise (even it’s from some random guy like Derek who she hates) – dooming herself to loneliness because in the essence of it all she thinks her father never wanted her. Doesn’t love her.
I felt called out when Grace says she was into older music like 80’s/90’s and starts jamming to Smashing Pumpkins and Rage Against the Machine. 🤣 Talk about nostalgia – that was the music of MY high school years! Yes I’m old, but damn it the music was good!
This book totally could be a tv series, it’s quirky and dark enough, and Grace is so problematic.

Do not be fooled by this pink, happy book cover…this is not a fluffy, cutesy love story. Grace is a mean, cold, hurt, lost teenager trying to navigate all these feelings of love, sex, and friendship. She takes it out on everyone around her, and then Wade comes along and she tries to be better, for him. This story will not be for everyone, Grace has no filter ~ but she reminds me of someone I befriended in my younger years and things turned out okay for my friend. Moral of the story, we are all flawed, the teenage years are angsty and emotional, but we can still turn out okay.

🖤 ~ Yolanda

Book Review | Starfish

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Starfish

Author: Akemi Dawn Bowman

Format: Paperback (owned)

Pages: 352

Categories: Coming of Age, Young Adult, Contemporary

A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel.

Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying exactly what she’s thinking. With a mother who makes her feel unremarkable and a half-Japanese heritage she doesn’t quite understand, Kiko prefers to keep her head down, certain that once she makes it into her dream art school, Prism, her real life will begin.

But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.

From debut author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes a luminous, heartbreaking story of identity, family, and the beauty that emerges when we embrace our true selves.

Starfish is a story about a girl named Kiko with a narcissistic mother, a broken family and a talent for art. She is dealing with being bi-racial, half white and half Japanese in a mostly white town. Kiko is ashamed of herself but through her art work she learns to express what she feels and hopes one day she can heal.

This family is broken – Kiko and her brothers aren’t close, they have a narcissistic mother which was portrayed very well, and her father is remarried with a family of his own. I genuinely felt scared for Kiko because her mom didn’t believe her about a certain situation and there seemed to be no one Kiko could really turn to.
Thank goodness for Jamie her best friend coming back into her life. Talk about having a life line! And thought their relationship went from a friendship to a crush to something more, I liked that she took a step back to fix other things happening in her life that took precedence.
The events that happened in Kiko’s life was something she blamed herself for and that was heartbreaking to think all of this burden was on her. The truth does come out though but still…so much heaviness. Kiko also deals with social anxiety on top of everything else and it just made me hope she gets help with everything one day. I love the sections of the story where Kiko thinks what she wants to say, but what she says instead. 😞 She censors herself so much.
She meets someone who appreciates her talent and helps her face some truths about herself. I love that she had a mentor in her life.

Kiko’s mom – 😒 she clearly has problems and needs help. When Kiko leaves her mom’s house (thank goodness) I was already worrying about her brother Shoji who was so quiet (all siblings dealt with their mother a certain way to cope) – and I was afraid no one was worrying about him enough.
It’s a heavy book. Kiko deals with self-esteem issues and anxiety exacerbated by living with her mother. Kiko’s mom didn’t even believe her about what her uncle did to her – it made me so angry but also I understood, this is reality, parents don’t believe their kids sometimes. Honestly it’s heartbreaking but I put myself in Kiko’s shoes and I felt like this story to be very realistic.
Triggers: racism, attempted suicide, anxiety, depression, sexual abuse

Starfish is not a light read, but I think Kiko’s story is important and will make an impact with many teens out there. I was raised in a place where the more mixed race you are the more special or beautiful you are and I wished so much Kiko had this experience. I felt such sadness for Kiko about her feelings of being trapped in her bi-racial body and in her home with a mother who thinks the world revolves around her. I wanted to break all those kids out of her custody. This story covers abuse (parental and sexual), anxiety, depression but it is also about strength too and the courage to embrace yourself and break free.

ARC Review | Permanent Record

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Permanent Record

Author: Mary H.K. Choi

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 400

Publication Date: September 3, 2019

Categories: Coming of Age, Debt, Family, Mental Health, Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

After a year of college, Pablo is working at his local twenty-four-hour deli, selling overpriced snacks to brownstone yuppies. He’s dodging calls from the student loan office and he has no idea what his next move is.

Leanna Smart’s life so far has been nothing but success. Age eight: Disney Mouseketeer; Age fifteen: first #1 single on the US pop chart; Age seventeen, *tenth* #1 single; and now, at Age nineteen…life is a queasy blur of private planes, weird hotel rooms, and strangers asking for selfies on the street.

When Leanna and Pab randomly meet at 4:00 a.m. in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, they both know they can’t be together forever. So, they keep things on the down-low and off Instagram for as long as they can. But it takes about three seconds before the world finds out…

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers and NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this eArc.

This book is so relevant for young adults today because it confronts the topics of student debt and mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

Pablo’s full name is Pablo Neruda Rind. Yeah, like the poet! Someone with a name like that will definitely have an interesting story and he sure does. Pablo is half Korean/half Pakistani-American and lives in New York City. He had one semester at NYU and dropped out. Pablo works at a deli just cruising by and ignoring the bill collectors calls and credit card bill statements that pile up at his apartment. His parents are very worried about him and his future.

Oh Pablo, the mom in me was so worried about him. I remember what it felt like to have student loans after college, and definitely not knowing for sure what I was going to do with my life. But what scared me most about him was that he dealt with his fears by running away from it. He was getting anxiety and giving me anxiety. Meeting a celebrity, Leanna Smart, who whisks him away to luxurious hotel rooms helps him forget all his problems for a moment but they always come back to slap him in his face when he’s at home and away from her.

The romance is sweet but it isn’t about that. It’s a coming of age story about a young man who is trying to find his way: what does he want to do with his life? What is he passionate about? Is he going to work in a deli the rest of his life? Is he happy with those prospects? He keeps hearing people say he has so much potential but he doesn’t know what that means. What is his potential? He doesn’t know and time feels like it’s ticking down with debt collectors coming after him and he’s only twenty years old!

Thank goodness for Pablo’s roommate Tice who tells him point blank what his problem is. I also appreciated how though Pablo thought he was alone, he really has a supportive group around him, he just needed to reach out and get some help. His parents are separated but you know they love him and want the best for him.

I really related to this book so much and can’t stop thinking about it, because I wonder if that will be my son one day. I told my husband about the book which led us to another discussion about our kids and their futures. I told my friend about it, she has no kids but wants kids, but we were both college students once upon a time, there were some things we wish we did differently. As a parent I worry about my kids and their future. We always think about if will we have enough money for my son’s college education and what if he doesn’t want to go to college? So many questions but in the end we just hope he is happy and can survive the “real world” when he graduates high school Yes, my son is going to be seven in August…🤣 but I am a parent and these are my worries. So this book hit home on many fronts.

I loved the whole city vibe of the book as well. I went to NYC only once and it was a time I was at a crossroads in my life and the city woke me up. It lit something in me that was dead for awhile and I love that I can feel that energy in this book.

This is an engaging book, relevant for teens and college students, also important reading for parents too! I loved it.

Get it here: Amazon

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Book Review: Sweetbitter

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Author: Stephanie Danler

Format: eBook

Pages: 353

Categories: Food, Coming of Age, Contemporary Fiction

Book Blurb:

Newly arrived in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Tess lands a job working front of house at a celebrated downtown restaurant. What follows is her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen. The story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the glitzy, grimy backdrop of New York’s most elite restaurants, in Sweetbitter Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the food industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young and adrift.

MY REVIEW

“Being remade was the same thing as being constantly undone.”
Sweetbitter by. Stephanie Danler

I decided to read this book because I watched season one of the tv series on STARZ just recently. I remember seeing this book cover everywhere when it was published and hyped up a few years ago. I also saw the polarizing reviews of the book, lots of love and lots of hate too. My review might be a bit influenced by what I saw in the show. The tv show itself is interesting, because I’m not sure if I love it. I like it and I am intrigued by it. Tess’s character annoys me, Jake as well, but Simone is pretty amazing on the show. I love the mysteriousness of their characters. And the secondary characters like Sasha, and Ariel are so wild. It’s interesting to see Tess and how she develops, with these people pushing her, molding her from all sides.

As for the book, Sweetbitter, I love the writing. It is gorgeous. I cheated because I watched the show so it gave me a visual of the characters. If I didn’t see the show, I’m not sure how I would visualize Tess. In the book, I might not have been interested in her at all if I didn’t watch the show. She’s boring, bland even and trying to find herself which made me impatient at times. She isn’t sure how to fit in with these dynamic personalities around her. Tess is not sure what she wants in life, she has no ambitions but to get through a work shift, usually high on some kind of drug. She reminded me of twenty-two year old me (minus the drug use), which is probably why she annoyed me at times. 😂

I didn’t even really know her name for a few pages, just “new girl”, she’s in the background getting yelled at and ordered around, whereas the characters around her are so loud. Her character in the show, says the city is “confrontational”, whereas she is not. In the book, I love how she describes how her world starts revolving around her job – she basically starts to eat, sleep and dream about her job.

“My life had been so full I couldn’t glimpse beyond it. I didn’t want to.“
Sweetbitter by. Stephanie Danler

The people around her are so pretentious it was hilarious! I used to work in a massage clinic and then a high-end day spa and we didn’t quote Kant, 😂 but we had to deal with our various bouts of pretentiousness from coworkers or managers. I could relate to the book so much with the work aspect. It made me remember how I used to sell “relaxation”. I sold this idea of body care, but I myself was so stressed and not relaxed, my feet hurt, and my back hurt. I was crazy slammed at work some days but I had to take care of our guests and pretend I was all zen. I used to wash our guests feet before their massages, and guests would tell me I was like the feet washer in Jesus’ day…um okay. 😂🤷🏻‍♀️ The things people would say! It was a crazy place to work, and I could do it in my 20’s, deal with all the b.s. with a smile on my face but I wouldn’t have the patience for it now that I’m 40.

This book reminded me of the people that work in our service industry and how much crap they can take. 🤣 👏🏼 It made me relive memories for sure and that’s partly why I devoured this story.

“And really, would it be as loud? As satisfying?”
Sweetbitter by. Stephanie Danler

Sweetbitter has no real plot but for me, it works. This book is a glimpse of the life of a twenty-two year old trying to find her way in life and is definitely at that age where she is about to learn some harsh life lessons. The people around her are trying to be “somebody” but are they really? They tell her she needs to be somebody. In the end I feel like she becomes one of them or at least has perfected the way to pretend to be like them.

A good part of the book focuses on Tess’s strange obsession with two characters, Simone and Jake. Simone is a server who has been at the restaurant awhile and basically runs the place. Simone is so invested in the restaurant, it is her life. She knows her wines and takes Tess on as an understudy and teaches her what she knows. But there is a guy, Jake. He’s bad news and I just wanted to give her some serious girl talk that would have not made a lick of difference, but Jake and Simone have a strange relationship. They grew up together and some things about their relationship are implied in the end but not confirmed. They remain a mystery, like everyone else in the book I suppose and Tess will never belong with them. It’s a lesson she learns the hard way of course, she starts to unravel but she shows her strength in the end. The ending is bittersweet. It’s not a happy ending, but not a sad ending either.

Sweetbitter made me reflect on my past with some good memories, and plenty bittersweet ones. Even though Tess annoyed me, it’s only because I used to be her in some ways, chasing something – freedom? A different life than the one we were trained to have? It’s a book that crept up on me – I didn’t think I’d relate to it at all, then I was finding things that were resonating deeply with me. I actually really enjoyed this book and will continue watching season two when it is airs. It’s a great book especially if you are in a reflective mood.

Get it here: Amazon

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