246 pages
Fifteen-year-old Virginia just doesn't fit in with her family. They're all thin and good-looking while she's increasingly overweight and insecure about her looks. Her 24-year-old sister Anais and 19-year-old brother Byron are athletic, suave, and popular; Virginia puts herself somewhere between "regular" and "dork." Although her mother is a hot-shot adolescent psychologist, she can't seem to understand or accept Virginia as she is. On top of all this, Virginia's best friend has recently moved across the country and she's developing romantic feelings for her secret makeout buddy, Froggy Welsh the 4th, but he doesn't seem to want to acknowledge her in public. Then, out of nowhere, Virginia's so-called perfect family is shaken when Byron is accused of an awful crime.
The plot surprised me, in a good way. When I started reading, enjoyed Virginia's funky narration but I thought it would be a typical teen book about boys, friends, parent troubles, etc. Then Byron's incident came out of nowhere and added a lot of depth to the story. It got me thinking on a lot of different levels.
As I was reading this, I was reminded of my 15-year-old self so many times. Although I didn't experience many of Virginia's specific issues, I totally related to her general self-consciousness and her struggle to identify herself as an individual instead of a member of her family or peers. She's trying to figure out how to be herself instead of conforming to the roles that she's always filled with her family and at school, and that's something that teens and adults alike can connect with.
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