REVIEW: SUGAR by Deirdre Riordan Hall

Summary:
I’m the fat Puerto Rican–Polish girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve always been too much and yet not enough.
 
Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home—cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.

When Sugar meets Even (not Evan—his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.

Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.

Title: SUGAR

Author: Deirdre Riordan Hall

Source: Audiobook via the Author as part of a giveaway

Publisher: Skyscape

Publication Date: June 1, 2015

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Purchase:
Amazon | Chapters | TBD

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this audiobook in a giveaway.

So this one was really intriguing to me. I'm a big girl, I'm overweight. I know that. I'm chill with it. But I also love myself. Now. There was a time I did not. And Sugar does not love herself in the beginning of this novel. So seeing her go from "I hate myself" to "I may be okay with myself" was really great.

Actually, everything about Sugar's character was great. I loved her as a character and I loved her story. Her familial relationship and the interactions she had with other kids at school were so real and raw. I felt like I WAS Sugar and going through all this with her. I think it was smart of have this book in first person because you felt like Sugar and could experience everything as if it was happening to you.

I did, however, have a problem with Even. He was literally too good to be true. I don't think he said one mean thing the entire novel. Which, like, come on. I get that we should look for more than physical beauty but you still NOTICE. And it was as if he was blind to it, which just didn't feel realistic to me.

As well, it felt like there was lots of filler between actual events. There seemed to be one huge important plot point then a couple trips to the mall or a school day in between that didn't really add much before we got to another plot point. It got a little boring at some points, but to be fair, that's life, right?

There was a lot of this that I thought could be taken out and the story would still make sense, but it was a good story and I really enjoyed seeing Sugar transform throughout this ovel. It was inspiring. It also made me eat a lot more McDonald's because it was ALL SHE TALKED ABOUT.