Fat Angie

January 1, 2019
When everything's awful inside and out, how can you take the bull by the horns?Angie's girlfriend has moved away. Angie's war-hero sister was killed by terrorists in Iraq (Fat Angie, 2013, etc.), and glossy local and national tributes leave Angie alone and confused in her grief. Angie's mother mourns "the good one" of her children, restricts Angie's food, and threatens Angie with gay conversion therapy. When Angie breaks a bully's nose in self-defense, witnesses lie and Angie faces legal prosecution. Depression, anxiety, panic, betrayal--how can Angie get out from under? A road trip--emotionally messy and awkward, with an ex-friend who ghosted her, one of the lying witnesses, and someone who films everything. With legal prosecution and conversion therapy looming, Angie stumbles her way through a road trip itinerary left by her dead sister. Charlton-Trujillo's mildly unorthodox prose style features extra hyphens ("surprising-not-surprising," "loud-loud," Angie's "couldn't-understand mother"). While less funny than Fat Angie, this has hilarious moments: If a sign says, "DO NOT FLUSH / FEMININE FEMALE PRODUCTS," could you flush a "butch tampon"? Angie's white; her fellow RV-ers are a racially diverse group. Fortunately and refreshingly, the text gives Angie no weight-loss arc; unfortunately, the use of fatness as a misery symbol throughout dilutes the explicit self-acceptance ending.A welcomingly awkward, offbeat journey for a "gay-girl gay" girl with many heartaches. (Fiction. 12-16)

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March 1, 2019

Gr 8 Up-Angie is surrounded by memories of her sister. Her "can't-understand mother" has made sure their town will never forget Angie's sister's sacrifice in service to her country. Angie faces bullying at school because of her weight, sexuality, and a past suicide attempt. When usually soft-spoken Angie is suspended from school for breaking her tormentor's nose, her mother considers sending her to an inpatient treatment facility. Emboldened by a letter from her late sister, Angie defies her mother and embarks on a journey to fulfill her sister's last wish. Readers hoping for a road trip story may be disappointed, as the fated trip does not begin until halfway through the novel. There are graphic descriptions of Angie's assault by her school tormentors, but Angie remains a fairly flat, nondescript protagonist. With near-constant references to Angie's weight, her internal references to "Fat Angie" chief among them, readers may find this book to be depressing rather than empowering. Give teens Julie Murphy's Dumplin' or Amy Spalding's The Summer of Jordi Perez instead. VERDICT Purchase only where the first volume is popular.-Jenni Frencham, Indiana University

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 Angie returns (Fat Angie, 2013), still fat, deeply grieving her sister's death, and alienated from her family, with her suicide attempt at a pep-rally not far from her mind. Can things darken even further? Yep. Her unexpected girlfriend has moved away. The horror of both Angie's inner and outer lives is on full display as she tries to survive the public memorial for her sister, a captured war hero, and fend off the pushes and kicks, taunts and jeers of school bullies. But when she embarks on a road trip, accompanied by an unlikely trio and encouraged by a last letter from her sister, she begins to breathe. Although familiar road-trip tropes appear?the airing of grievances, past histories, new friendships, hints of romance?the story has a force and freshness, thanks to the dynamic third-person narration, a welcome change from the ubiquitous first-person voice of YA novels. There is an intensity to the story that makes no attempt to quell or disguise Angie's fury and depression, yet it is full of humor. An engrossing read, uncomfortable in the best possible way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)