Author: Kelly deVos
Format: E-Book
Rating:1 Sstar
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Fat.
High school senior Cookie Vonn’s post-graduation dreams include getting out of Phoenix, attending Parsons and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly compared to her supermodel mother—and named after a dessert.
Thanks to her job at a fashion blog, Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her portfolio and appeal for a scholarship, but her plans are put on standby when she’s declared too fat to fly. Forced to turn to her BFF for cash, Cookie buys a second seat on the plane. She arrives in the city to find that she’s been replaced by the boss’s daughter, a girl who’s everything she’s not—ultrathin and superrich. Bowing to society’s pressure, she vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush, and put her life on track.
Skinny.
Cookie expected sunshine and rainbows, but nothing about her new life is turning out like she planned. When the fashion designer of the moment offers her what she’s always wanted—an opportunity to live and study in New York—she finds herself in a world full of people more interested in putting women down than dressing them up. Her designs make waves, but her real dream of creating great clothes for people of all sizes seems to grow more distant by the day.
Will she realize that she’s always had the power to make her own dreams come true?
High school senior Cookie Vonn’s post-graduation dreams include getting out of Phoenix, attending Parsons and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly compared to her supermodel mother—and named after a dessert.
Thanks to her job at a fashion blog, Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her portfolio and appeal for a scholarship, but her plans are put on standby when she’s declared too fat to fly. Forced to turn to her BFF for cash, Cookie buys a second seat on the plane. She arrives in the city to find that she’s been replaced by the boss’s daughter, a girl who’s everything she’s not—ultrathin and superrich. Bowing to society’s pressure, she vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush, and put her life on track.
Skinny.
Cookie expected sunshine and rainbows, but nothing about her new life is turning out like she planned. When the fashion designer of the moment offers her what she’s always wanted—an opportunity to live and study in New York—she finds herself in a world full of people more interested in putting women down than dressing them up. Her designs make waves, but her real dream of creating great clothes for people of all sizes seems to grow more distant by the day.
Will she realize that she’s always had the power to make her own dreams come true?
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When I finished this book, I had high feelings for it. However, the more I've thought about it. the more I've realized this book is not everything it's cracked up to be.
At it's core, this book sounds like it has a good premise: young woman advocates for fat people and makes clothing for larger women. What we really have is a spoiled, selfish brat who thinks that every single problem she has is caused by her weight.
Cookie Vonn, daughter to a supermodel and doctor, is about 330 pounds at the beginning of this book. She has struggled with her weight her entire life - and after having trouble getting a ticket on a plane, she decides she wants to lost weight. She also wants to keep designing clothing for larger people.
This is all great in theory, but when the book turns into Cookie spending all her time judging everyone around her and making assumptions about people, it gets a little old.
This book is told in alternate timelines: FAT and SKINNY. Cookie spends each timeline talking about either her weight loss journey or what life is like as a skinny person. The thing that I find bothersome about Cookie and her journey is that every single bad thing that could possibly happen to her happens while she is fat. Every. Single. Bad thing. She can't buy two plane tickets (big fat lie, by the way - you can just buy two plane tickets. In fact, if you are over a certain weight, most airlines require you to buy two seats.). She never has love because she's fat and people don't think she's attractive when she's fat. She gets treated rudely by people just because she's fat. It never occurs to her that her lack of confidence might be the reason she doesn't have a boyfriend, or that her bad attitude towards others might be the reason people don't care much for her.
There is one person, Kennes Butterfield, who does treat Cookie poorly, and that is a problem. BUT, BUT BUT, once Cookie is skinny, guess what?! KENNES is all of a sudden apologetic and nice to her, because people are always nice to skinny people, right?!
Now, can we just take a minute to talk about Cookie's friendship with Tommy!? Tommy does do some good stuff for Cookie, but 98% of their relationship is him treating her like crap and her just putting up with it and forgiving him because he lost 30 pounds and now he is so adorable and cute!
Tommy does some truly terrible things. He starts dating Kennes, and when Kennes bullies Cookie, Tommy turns it around and tells Cookie she should just brush it off. Everyone tells Cookie to just brush it off. Because being bullied is not big deal, RIGHT?! And Kennes has such a hard life - that's the implication, coming from so many people. Things in Kennes life aren't perfect, so that makes it okay her her to treat other people like crap? No.Just stop now - just because things might be rough for you, doesn't mean that you get to drag all your crap out and dump it on other people.
Another just downright shitty thing Tommy does - he lets Cookie take the fall for a whole host of stolen lego sets that she tries to return for him. True - he and some "friends" have become part of a ring where they buy lego sets at certain stores, and somehow also get their hands on stolen lego sets, then try to return ALL the lego sets to get a ton of money. So, Tommy calls Cookie saying he needs her help, sends her into a store with a receipt and more lego sets than are on the receipt - and she tries to return them all and ends up getting a court date and community service. AND TOMMY NEVER TELLS HER HE'S SORRY! He also never, not even once, thinks about taking the blame for what he did - and he says that the reason he got involved in this scam is because he's dating Kennes, and Kennes is used to nice things that cost a lot of money! So, it's okay to get your friend in trouble because you like a girl and want to spend money on her?! Give me a freaking break.
My advice to both Tommy and Cookie:
I had a big problem with the relationship between Cookie and Gareth. For starters, he hates fat people - which is super apparent based on his speech at the beginning of the novel. But Cookie brushes that off, because he's hot and a fashion designer. Nevermind the fact that he's 31 and she's 19. Nevermind that he hates fat people and would never have looked twice at her when she was fat.
I know that 12 years is not a huge age difference, really, except that when you are 19, it really is! Cookie is so immature, and has so much learning and growing up to do. And Gareth is a jackass. He consistently puts down other people by doing things like making fat jokes (in front of Cookie), and talks about her like she isn't even in the room - they just want to use her to make it look like they care about her and others. She should not have ever even considered dating him -especially considering that Cookie even says he's a jerk and not a nice person right from the beginning of the book. BUT SHE STILL DATES HIM!
So, to sum it up: The characters are terrible, don't actually care about others (or themselves) very much, and the story is full of hatred toward fat people, even though this is supposed to be a fat positive and body positive book.
There are some great reviews of this book that even further explore all the issues with this book:
Ang's review on Goodreads
Laina Has Too Much Spare Time
Read these reviews instead of this book!
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