Review: Skinny by Donna Cooner

by:  Donna Cooner
published by:  Scholastic
publish date:  October 1, 2012

Hopeless. Freak. Elephant. Pitiful. These are the words of Skinny, the vicious voice that lives inside fifteen-year-old Ever Davies’s head. Skinny tells Ever all the dark thoughts her classmates have about her. Ever knows she weighs over three hundred pounds, knows she’ll probably never be loved, and Skinny makes sure she never forgets it.

First off regarding the cover, I do kind of like it because it makes sense in regards to the story.  I did get a kick out of the people on Goodreads that were fussing a bit about the cover model.  Their comments are valid.  In Skinny Ever starts off weighing 302 lbs, she ends up weighing somewhere around 200.  That girl on the cover isn't 200 lbs and she isn't for sure 302 lbs.  I betcha if Scholastic had Julia Bluhm on their butts like Seventeen Magazine did, they would have had a more appropriate cover model.

On to the book.  I really liked it.  I read it pretty much cover to cover in one day.  Anybody that struggles with weight issues is going to identify with Ever and her day to day battle with Skinny.  After Ever's mother dies she gains a lot of weight.  As a last ditch effort to lose it, she elects to undergo gastric bypass surgery.  Despite her fears, with the help of her best friend Rat, she loses over 100 lbs.

There were some things going on in the book that I didn't really get.  What was the deal with Whitney?  She was the most popular girl in school and all the sudden was taking on Ever as a makeover project.  Was it just so she could have a makeover project?  Was that her only goal?  I kept waiting for a Carrie moment with the pig blood all over Ever at the Fall Ball, but it never happened.  Or what did happened didn't seem to have anything to do with Whitney.  It just seemed hang there. 

There were a lot of positives going on in the book.  It did discuss the dangers and the downsides to gastric bypass.  I've known quite a few people who have had it and it worked for exactly 1 person.  The book talked about how much work you have to do and how nothing is an easy fix. I also appreciated the fact that once she lost her weight that it didn't automatically fix the things that Ever thought it would.  Skinny had a lot of good messages about appreciating the things that you have in your life.

This is a YA book and it was pretty clean.  No bad language, no violence, no sexual situations.  There was a little romance, but it was all pretty G rated.