Big Boned

Product Description
Can she be herself in a one-size-fits-all world?Lori Palmer is the new girl at Bay Water High, where students prize glossy hair, “beach” bodies, and thigh gaps above all else, which is so not her. She misses her old school, where her artistic talent was more important to her peers than a chia smoothie recipe ever was.Uncomfortable in her own size-sixteen skin, Lori decides to survive senior year as best she can by blending into the background while she melts in the summer heat. But her plans go completely awry when she discovers popular jock Jake volunteering at her brother Zac’s school. When her brother befriends Jake’s sister, Lori is suddenly thrust into Jake’s unfamiliar world of water polo, parties, and stargazing.As she grows closer to Jake, and her relationship with her mother starts to deteriorate, Lori’s old anxieties resurface and she throws herself into her art. It’s a wildly new direction for Lori, and through it she realizes that finding her voice might get her into a world of trouble, but standing up for what she believes in is as important as standing up for herself.
From School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up—Because of her parents' divorce and the need for her autistic brother, Zac, to attend a special school, 17-year-old Lori is now facing her first day at her new school. She has been thrust from her artistic, trendy, urban lifestyle in Johannesburg, South Africa into the slower-paced small town of Clifton, Cape Town, just a few months before graduation. She is angry, hurt, and demoralized. Lori is constantly berating herself for her pasty white skin and wild red hair, for being fat and ugly or too forward, or not forward enough. Barely making it through the first few days, angry at her parents and trying to stay under the radar, Lori picks up Zac and discovers that the handsomest boy she's ever seen—Jake—has a sister, Lisa, at the same school. Jake, who is white, cares as much for Lisa as Lori does Zac, so they plan play dates and build a friendship that seems like it might become more. When popular Thembi, a gorgeous Black girl with an eye for fashion, asks Lori if she can make a dress for her, Lori realizes that not everyone agrees with the thoughts in her head. Through therapy, growing friendships, reconciliation, and some powerful graffiti art-making, she learns that she has the power to change that conversation, accept herself, and open doors along the way. VERDICT Growth through negative self-talk makes this a powerful book for all teens.—Connie Williams, Petaluma, CA
Review
" . . . [a] powerful book for all teens"―School Library Journal"Big Boned is an optimistic novel whose warm cast subverts convention, and whose heroine learns to take risks."―Foreword
About the Author
Jo Watson is the award-winning author of contemporary romances for both adults and teens, including The Destination Love series and her YA debut Big Boned, a Publisher’s Marketplace Buzz Book. A graduate of the arts and media school AFDA, Jo earned an honors degree in Live Performance and worked as a script writer, director, and producer before deciding to publish her stories on Wattpad, which catapulted her now full-time career as an author. To date, her stories have accumulated more than 50 million reads on the platform and she has become an international bestselling sensation, having sold over half-a-million books worldwide, and partnering with major publishers to bring her stories to bookshelves everywhere. She lives with her husband and son in South Africa.Jo Watson is the award-winning author of contemporary romances for both adults and teens, including The Destination Love series and her YA debut Big Boned, a Publisher’s Marketplace Buzz Book. A graduate of the arts and media school AFDA, Jo earned an honors degree in Live Performance and worked as a script writer, director, and producer before deciding to publish her stories on Wattpad, which catapulted her now full-time ca