Review: Skinny by Donna Cooner - Farah

Title: Skinny

Author: Donna Cooner

Publication date: October 1st, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic

Genre(s): Young Adult (Contemporary)

Source: Publisher
Format: ARC

Pages: 272

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Find your voice.

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.

When I first saw the cover of Skinny, I immediately decided this was a book I needed to read ASAP. If you know me, I'm such a sucker for realistic fiction, and especially books that talk about eating disorders. The synopsis kind of reminded me of one of my all time favorite books "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson. The main protagonist, Ever, pissed the hell out of me. She's fat, and the big problem is that she feels sorry for herself. She doesn't try to help herself, and she pities herself, and I'm just standing there wanting to slap her. I mean if you want to be "skinny", you gotta work for it. You're obviously going to eat less, and cut off the chocolates and junk. I actually found myself rolling my eyes most of the time. Also I hated how much of a big deal her schoolmates made because of her weight. I mean, so what if a person is fat? Does that mean you can't be friends with them? I found that really stupid and unrealistic to believe. People at her school were actually disgusted because of her! I mean, really?

 After doing some thinking, I understood why she felt pity for herself. The voice inside her head, Skinny, is the most unsupportive person, or actually a voice, can be. It's not mentioned in the book, but I understood Ever's psychological problem. That's how the voice inside her head developed, and it grew to the point that even Ever gave the voice a name. That's when I realized that the characters felt real, even though it wasn't clarified of who or what "Skinny" is. Moving to her friend, Rat, he was a very fun character to read about. The only problem was that Donna Cooner didn't really provide any history about how the two of them got to meet each other and etc. Honestly, the story did get better towards reading, because I liked how Ever's attitude towards her body changed, and she started feeling more confident about herself. (Yay)

Overall, it wasn't a book I could compare to "Wintergirls", but it was still a fun read. Even though somethings were expected, it was still a good read that I would recommend to a friend. Really teaches people to be more confident about who they are, and what they look like. I also really liked Donna Cooner's style of writing, so i'll be waiting for her next novel.