Kelly deVos

From debut author Kelly deVos comes an unforgettable novel, told in dual Fat and Skinny perspectives, about smart fashion, pursuing your dreams, and loving yourself. High school senior Cookie Vonn's post-graduation dreams include getting out of Phoenix, attending Parsons and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn't help that she's constantly compared to her supermodel mother--and named after a dessert. Thanks to her job at a fashion blog, Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her portfolio and appeal for a scholarship, but her plans are put on standby when she's declared too fat too fly. Forced to turn to her BFF for cash, Cookie buys a second seat on the plane. She arrives in the city to find that she's been replaced by the boss's daughter, a girl who's everything she's not--ultrathin and superrich. Bowing to society's pressure, she vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush, and put her life on track. Cookie expected sunshine and rainbows, but nothing about her new life is turning out like she planned. When the fashion designer of the moment offers her what she's always wanted--an opportunity to live and study in New York--she finds herself in a world full of people more interested in putting women down than dressing them up. Her designs make waves, but her real dream of creating great clothes for people of all sizes seems to grow more distant by the day. Will she realize that she's always had the power to make her own dreams come true?

Fat Girl on a Plane

Leelynn Brady

Full review on my blog  Sometimes Leelynn Reads 

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, and Harlequin Teen for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I believe this was deVos’ debut novel – yes it was, I just checked Goodreads – and I believe she did a great job with it. I also had a great time reading it, well listening to it. I’m glad that an audiobook was finally available for me to listen to, because I was looking forever for a copy and just had the worst time finding one. I think I could have reviewed this way sooner if I had, but alas. There is another review that I saw on Goodreads that made a good point: this is not a weight loss journey. I think that is important to say because while Cookie does end up losing a lot of weight with this extreme diet treatment that she goes through, that is not the overall plot of the story, nor is it the magic pill that makes everything happy and beautiful all the time when she achieves the weight that she wants to be. So I didn’t feel compelled to try to lose a tremendous amount of weight like she did, although if I did that would be cool, and this book didn’t make me feel like I was inadequate for being fat.

So that was really important to me because I wouldn’t want anyone reading this to feel like they couldn’t be happy or worth anything because they aren’t at a certain weight, or a certain body type.

Overall, I think this was a pretty good novel, and I plan on reading more deVos novels in the future.

marinda 

** spoiler alert **
           This book was honestly kind of aggravating. After a hundred or so pages, I stopped Really Reading and just skimmed until I hit the 75% done mark; that's when it actually got interesting. Cookie is an extremely irritating character who knows she's doing exactly what she doesn't want to do, and even mentions it several times. I only read to the end so I could have a redeeming ending. Which really was just that; the very last chapter/section was the only part that I liked the main character. I wish it had been reversed to where a quarter of the book was self-loathing, fat-hating rhetoric, and the rest was Cookie doing what she wanted and living the way she deserves to.

Fat Girl on a Plane

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