Synopsis:
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.
But there is another voice: Ever’s singing voice, which is beautiful but has been silenced by Skinny. Partly in the hopes of trying out for the school musical—and partly to try and save her own life—Ever decides to undergo a risky surgery that may help her lose weight and start over.
With the support of her best friend, Ever begins the uphill battle toward change. But demons, she finds, are not so easy to shake, not even as she sheds pounds. Because Skinny is still around. And Ever will have to confront that voice before she can truly find her own. (goodreads.com)
Review:
tree stars***
I went into this book not knowing much of what it was about, I only knew there was this girl who had weight problems and this was a story about overcoming that obstacle, I didn´t expect to find such an annoying main character. All through the book Ever is constantly hearing whispers of a creature or entity named Skinny who tells our main character what other people are thinking about her. From the beginning I knew this creature was something made up from Ever´s own mind that made her see insults where there were none, it bothered me a lot how deeply subconsious and image oriented the main character was she would always be pain way too much attention to someone´s “toned legs” or “nice cloth” and envy all that she didn´t have. She would imagine insults where in truth people were only trying to be friendly or help her. She victimize herself way to much and appears to be very mean to the people around her.
I kept reading expecting some character growth, and I got it! the problem was that it all seemed way too fast. She realized her mistakes and changed her attitude in the course of a chapter which I thing is very unrealistic.
Skinny was one of the only factors that truly interested me, this creature represented that internal voice we all have that holds us back and I think Donna Cooner did a genius portrait of it via skinny. Another thing that I truly enjoyed about this book were the struggles that an overweight person faces every day, it both interested/saddened me when the main character referred to her body as “a prison” and it made me see obesity differently. It´s not that this people are lazy or that they have no control over what they eat. Many of this people have psychological issues that go way back which is what makes them eat too much and get to a point where their bodies are like a prison because they cant move or breath correctly.
Now I can see how ignorant I was when it came to this topic and skinny truly educated me!
