Growing pains
Jamie
is a senior student at high school. She is the main part in her
school musical. She is also a column writer for the school newspaper.
She’s trying to get into many great journalism colleges.
She’s committed to her relationship with her boyfriend and
like most of her friends, is trying to find out where she fits
in life. She says there’s only one problem with her. And
what’s that? She’s excessively overweight.
Jamie’s most important need at the moment
is getting one of the journalism scholarships in one of the country’s
best colleges which she is stressing with so much, her life becomes
engulfed in the world of journalism by writing an explosive and
loud column in the school paper as an alias she calls Fat Girl.
She writes about everything happening in her life and the life
of her friends-including her reaction to her boyf’s gastric
banding surgery, which is made to help him lose weight, even though
one of the side effects is death. When her column gets the attention
of the town media, her friends and boyfriend’s family, things
start to go hectic for Jamie, and while she’s trying to
fight for her freedom of problems, more keep arising. With a new
love emerging and happiness with her size going down hill, at
heart, is she still Jamie or is Fat Girl taking over?
Big Fat Manifesto is like a teen soap opera
made into a book, with the troubles in a regular teen’s
life, as well as living life as an overweight, irritable, but
at the same time, kind and sensitive teenager. It's a book with
a relatively easy style of writing, but with some words not usually
used is everyday conversation.
My favourite character in the story was definitely
Jamie because I may not have always been able to relate to her,
but she was the most colourful and exciting character in the book,
because of her attitude and emotions. I can relate to her in a
way that I am also still trying to find out who I am as a person
and I'm not really sure about who 'me' is.
This book made me feel excited and wanting more
each time I read it. It had a great storyline and Susan made me
feel the emotions that Jamie and her friends were going through
because of the excellent descriptions and adjectives and made
it so enticing to read on. Big Fat Manifesto is a novel
that will certainly be of interest to any teenager who is still
trying to discover their own true identities.
Gaby
Edwards
