It is hard to lose weight, especially when you love lasagna,
you don’t like to work out, your mother is super thin and only eats salads, and
you have a part-time job selling hot pretzels. So what’s your motivation going
to be? Being able to shop in “regular” clothing stores? Attracting the glance
of a cute boy? Wearing a nice dress to an important family wedding? Or just…not
being the target of mean girls’ comments?
For Ann it’s all of the above. She desperately wants to lose
45 pounds for her aunt Jackie’s wedding in which she’ll be the bridesmaid. And
yes, she has done Weight Watchers in the past. It works, but it’s not her
style.
So Ann watches an infomercial and orders this diet plan
which includes supplements which make her shaky. Not good. Luckily, Ann’s smart
enough to know that you don’t take those things. But calorie restriction is so….painful.
Let’s not even talk about exercise. The tape that came with her diet plan is
ridiculously impossible. Thank God no one is watching her attempt to do it. No…people
are only watching when you accidentally get drunk at a party and puke all over
the shoes of the cute boy whom you like and who surprisingly seems to like you
back. And it gets posted all over Facebook. There’s no motivation like
humiliation, you know?
45 Pounds (More or Less) by K. A. Barson. 264 p. Viking:
2013. Booktalk to 7th - 12th grades.
