Thursday, January 26, 2012

Book 4 - Big Girl Small

"Big Girl Small" by Rachel DeWoskin is the tale of a teen aged girl nard Judy who has achondroplasia, a type of dwarfism. She is a very talented singer has just started at Darcy, an elite arts school. Early on she meets and falls hard for the beautiful and brooding Kyle.

When we first meet Judy, she has fled to a sleazy motel to escape an unnamed scandal. She is in hiding, over dramatizing the situation, imagining that reporters in helicopters are waiting to get a photo of her if she even leaves her sanctuary. As the book progresses we get pieces to the puzzle as well find out the details of her first months at her new school and we meet her new good friends Sarah and Molly.

Judy is written with a wonderful sense of humor, and it is interesting to read about a character with dwarfism. Being a teenager is hard enough, but being different in any way compounds it. Judy looks at her average height classmates and wonders what might feel like to have "ostrich legs" like them. Her parents have always made her feel cherished and she feels that they proved how much they loved her by having another child after her. When people stare at Judy, her parents stare right back, but with a friendly look on their faces, just so the others know that they are acting inappropriately.

It is hard for me to write about my feelings on the last quarter of the book without giving away too much. Let's just say that people can be very cruel and also others can be very naive. Also it is a very different world from the one that I experienced as a teenager and that is a mixed blessing.

Overall I was pleased with this book, but it was a bit superficial and a bit more depth would have been better. But it is well written and humorous and a good pass time read.

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