Starred review from August 13, 2018
Higgins (Now That You Mention It) writes with uncommon grace and empathy about a fraught topic for many people: weight. Marley, Georgia, and Emerson meet as children at a camp for overweight teenagers. Fast forward to adulthood: Emerson dies young—and makes Marley and Georgia vow to relish every moment of life, starting with the “things we’ll do when we’re skinny” list they composed one summer at camp. Told in alternating first-person chapters, the story follows Marley and Georgia as they learn their value and their own beauty, while Emerson’s interspersed journal entries address a dream version of herself. Higgins doesn’t pull any punches as she starkly illustrates how the judgmental attitudes of even close friends and family—brilliantly illustrated by Georgia’s cruel and overbearing brother and her brittle, skinnier-than-thou mother—can caustically eat away at self-worth. The author provides sharp psychological insight into her characters, such as when Georgia thinks, “Life was kind and full of chances. Sometimes we didn’t take them. Sometimes we hid our truth and acted out of fear. Sometimes we turned away and closed the door.” This novel is a winner.
