Image: Penguin Random House
Last time! Happy penultimate Tuesday of the 2020 - 2021 school year! The final day of school is one week away! I hope you've got your summer reading lined up! If not, be sure to check this space for recommendations all through the summer!
Teen Tuesday features Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado. Sixteen-year-old Charlotte, "Charlie" Vega is a brown girl growing up in a mostly white Connecticut suberb. She's a writer and a reader. She and her mom still miss her dad who died. She has a gorgeous, Black and popular best friend named Amelia and Charlie plays the third-wheel, fat friend role pretty amiably. Her mom used to be overweight as well, but now she has slimmed down and is constantly nagging Charlie about her weight. Charlie longs for a swoony romance of her own and is so pumped when her crush, a football player named Cal invites her to a football awards dance. Can this really be happening?
Charlie is the smart, endearing narrator of this slow-paced, thoughtful romance. Debut author Crystal Maldonado explores mother-daughter as well as best friend dynamics and issues of self-acceptance and fat-shaming as Charlie struggles to find love and her place in the world. New-to-me narrator, Carla Vega's portrayed a thoughtful Charlie in a well-paced, engaging performance. While adult-me occasionally rolled my eyes at Charlie's naiveté, teen readers will root for Charlie to go for it.
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