Name: To Be Honest
ISBN: 9781250183156

Maggie Ann Martin

A high school senior must live alone with her weight-obsessed mother after her older sister goes off to college in this YA contemporary novel from the author of The Big F.

To Be Honest

courtney garrison

I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect from this novel. I saw Chelsea on YouTube brag about this book for having a plus-sized main character and talking about loving yourself at any size. I knew after that I wanted to read it.

Your main character is Savannah. She is in her senior year of high school and lives with her mom. Her sister Ashely has just moved away for college and so Savannah isn’t sure how she will do living alone with her mother.

Savannah’s mom I went through the whole book with mixed feelings about. One moment she is completely normal and supportive of Savannah’s size and the next she completely tears savannah down. Even though she’s been divorced and had her own insecurities it was totally cringe-worthy reading what she said to Savannah.

Savannah’s best friend Grace is the wing woman we all need in life. I absolutely adored her. She was always there for Savannah and ready to kick anyone’s ass for her, even her own cousins.

George was sweet but his anxiety and fear completely get in the way of him being honest with Savannah and I completely related to him and secretly rooted for him throughout the book. He is such a sweetheart.

This book does contain quite a few scenes about carbs, sugary foods, dieting and exercising, seeing bones and a few other triggering things, so if you have any triggers relating to eating disorders I would go into this one very cautiously.

My favorite aspect of this book was how the author showed both sides of body image. You have Savannah who is happy with her size and is proud of who she is and all her curves. While as you have her mom who has gone on this weight loss show and is now basically starving herself to stay thin. I was really in awe of how the author not only showed both sides but showed it happening under the same roof with a mother and daughter.

This book ranks up there with what I lost by Alexandra Ballard. You see how something so small in someone’s life can change their attitude or the way they see something.

Overall this is definitely a new fave and I don’t think my review is doing any justice to how good this book is. I hope you all get the chance to read it when it releases.

Quotes/Favorite Moments

“I never felt beautiful in this dress,” she snapped. “You were beautiful to me in this dress,” I said.

“Oh, gosh no, honey. Savannah if you want a snack, there are banana chips in the kitchen,” she said.

She started scraping the partially cooked balls of cookie dough into the trash can, disregarding all my yells asking her to stop.

“Stop, mom, stop!” I yelled “he brought that; he bought that with his own money! Please stop! She stopped slowly turning back around to face me. Horrified tears had already started falling down my face as I waited for her next move. “Get it out of my house,” she said. (All that because George brought a pizza over)

“You say opinionated and outspoken like they’re bad things,” he said.

"I knew that I was stuffed to the brim from all the spaghetti that I grabbed the first time, but knowing that I would have the option to go back up for a second round of food without any judgment made the biggest sense of relief and calm fall over me."

Flavia Louise

This book really surprised me but it also fuckin hurt.

Candyce Kirk

This book surprised me in such a good way. To Be Honest is such a touching story. If work didn't get in the way I would've finished this in one sitting!
I participated in the blog tour for this amazing book. My full review can be found here: https://thebookdutchesses.com/2018/08...

Renee Delcourt

I really wanted to like this book. No not just like it, love it. A book about teenage angst and body positivity sounds full of teachable moments, but I think the book kind of fell short of what it could have been. The book seemed to have too many directions and there wasn't really one clear path for the reader to go, "Here is what this book means!" The development of the teenage love story was sweet and yet was confusing then just swiftly resolved. The inner workings of her family felt like it should have been more of the focus than it really was. However it ended up being all over the place with nothing to really weigh it down clearly. Then there is the drama of her school and the recruitment program. I felt like this could have been a solid plot line as well but jumped forward so much that you couldn't even get in to it. I like the fact that Savvanah is such a staunch supporter of loving yourself the way you are but I feel that this was not really shown well enough in any of the situations.

Taylor McNeely

I loved how outgoing and spunky Savannah was! She really helped me rethink a lot of the body issues I've been going through and made me love myself a little bit more.

Kate

It’s usually a good sign when you fly through a book in one sitting and that was definitely the case with To Be Honest. I devoured this book and enjoyed every moment.

The writing itself was a little on the simpler side for my personal reading tastes but that didn’t take away from how much I appreciated the fat representation in this book. It made me so incredibly happy to be able to follow a fat character who was not only body positive and not constantly putting herself down but had a story of her own and one that didn’t solely revolve around her weight. 

Another element I throughly enjoyed were the multiple relationship dynamics. Whether it be a friendship, romance, sibling or parent child relationship, was intricate, raw, honest and wonderful to follow. I warmed to each character and emphasised with their stories and struggles, whilst equally squealing at their adorableness. 

I adored the journalism side plot. It was so much fun to watch two badass, smart women following their passion and using it to take down and expose misogyny and injustice within the school system. I wish I’d had Savannah and Grace’s guts as a teen! 

Although To Be Honest, was definitely light and fluffy at times, it had a depth to it and a heaviness I wasn’t expecting. Savannah faces a lot of fatphobia and body shaming from her mother, who is revealed to have an eating disorder. Although she’s not officially diagnosed until the end of the book, this is something that’s prevalent throughout. I’m mentioning it now as this is not stated in the summary and I personally think it’s important to know when going into this, as although I thought it was portrayed well, her disordered eating and fatphobic comments have the potential to be triggering.

With wonderful fat representation, relationships, feminism, characters and mental health representation, To Be Honest ticked all the boxes for what I needed from an adorable contemporary right now. 

TW: 
• Eating Disorder
• Fatphobia
• Panic Attacks 
• Anxiety

To Be Honest

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