BIG FAT MANIFESTO
Susan Vaught
Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Fiction
ISBN: 9781599902067
320 pages

In some ways, Jamie Carcaterra is your average high school senior. She is overwhelmed with deadlines, struggling to study for the ACT, courageously filling out college applications, stressing on how to pay for college, dedicated to practicing for her school’s musical, and completely committed to spending hours on the school paper. Somehow, in the midst of all of this madness, Jamie finds time to spend with her two best friends --- Freddie (Frederica) and NoNo (Nora Nostenfast) --- and her football-playing boyfriend, Burke.

In other ways, Jamie is not a typical teen. She is what some health professionals would call “morbidly obese.” Jamie, however, simply considers herself to be fat. She doesn’t delude herself about her health, nor does she let it slow her down in any way; she has a very busy life filled with friends and activities. Sure, Jamie has tried to lose weight and has dreamt of being supermodel skinny. But she plows ahead with her life as if it doesn’t bother her --- even though, deep down inside, it really does.

Jamie decides to enter the National Feature Award scholarship program by writing the best, most outrageous, hilarious, chock-full-of-attitude school newspaper series ever. Not only will winning pay for her college expenses, it would be her chance to convey to the world what it’s really like to live as an overweight teen. In her Big Fat Manifesto, she calls herself Fat Girl, debunks myths, shares alarming statistics and even goes undercover with the curvy Freddie and skinny No-No into a fashion mall, proving how horrid overweight people are treated.

Then Burke shocks Jamie with an announcement. He decides to get weight loss bypass surgery, which has huge risks associated with it. Jamie argues with him and tries to talk him out of it, but eventually she accepts that he is going through with the life-changing operation and vows to support him. Jamie adds this unexpected twist into her articles, describing the gory details and heart-draining worry as she and his family brew in the hospital waiting room during the procedure.

Jamie’s articles start drawing more and more attention, even reaching beyond the school halls and out into the community. But not all of it is positive. Will these writings be enough to win her the scholarship? Will she lose Burke as a result of the surgery? Jamie experiences some painful discoveries as she searches for the answers.

Award-winning author Susan Vaught brings the world a very different kind of novel, one in which the main character is strong, defiant, ambitious, hilarious, intelligent and overweight. Jamie will remain in the hearts and minds of readers long after the last page is turned. Not only does Vaught weave into her story some very disturbing statistics and trivia about obesity in America, she also invites her audience to share in some of the emotional suffering that people like Jamie endure. BIG FAT MANIFESTO is a winner!

    --- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING MY LIGHT and THE BLACK POND

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