FAT GIRL ON A PLANE
Author: Kelly deVosSeries: N/A
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: June 5, 2018
Summary:
Don’t miss this unforgettable debut novel, told in two timelines, about smart fashion, pursuing your dreams, and loving yourself!
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 too 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 She arrives in the city to find that she’s been replaced by the boss’s daughter, a girl who’s everything she’s not—ultrathin and superrich.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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What Makes It Plane Worthy?
It's right there in the title: this book is about a plane! And the narrative is going to spin fatphobic thoughts on their head and I can't wait to dig into it. I'm living for this trend of fat representation in YA books, so I was really excited when I read about this one in PW! Not only is it fat rep, but it is also fashion related!! Which is not often something you see. As a classified "fat girl" who loves fashion, I am really looking forward tp reading this.
LOVE & GELATO
Author: Jenna Evans Welch
Series: N/A
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: May 3, 2016
Summary:
“I made the wrong choice.”Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.
But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
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What Makes It Plane Worthy?
LOVE & GELATO was a cute contemporary read that makes you wish you could travel all the time and find someone to love you. I finished it and wanted to go to Italy immediately - which wasn't necessarily the case before I started the book. Although I can't have gelato so really is there a point? Guess I could always find some love!
QUEENS OF GEEK
Author: Jen Wilde
Series: N/A
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Publication Date: March 14, 2017
Summary:
Three friends, two love stories, one convention: this fun, feminist love letter to geek culture is all about fandom, friendship, and finding the courage to be yourself.Charlie likes to stand out. She’s a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought.
Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there’s one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about a fan contest for her favorite fandom, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde, chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, is an empowering novel for anyone who has ever felt that fandom is family.
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What Makes It Plane Worthy?
These three friends travel together to go to a ComiCon and empowers you to step outside your comfort zone. I love the majority of the representation and this is such a good read. It'll make you feel like you're hopping off a plane at LAX with a dream in your cardigan - but you can actually achieve it.
GIRL AGAINST THE UNIVERSE
Author: Paula Stokes
Series: N/A
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: May 17, 2016
Summary:
From the author of The Art of Lainey and Liars, Inc. comes a fresh, contemporary story about a girl coping with PTSD and the boy who wants to help her move on from the past.Sixteen-year-old Maguire knows the universe is against her. No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when she's around. Like that time the roller coaster jumped off its tracks. Or the time the house next door caught on fire. Or the time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash--and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch.
Despite what her therapist tells her, Maguire thinks it's best to hide out in her room, far away from anyone she might accidentally hurt. But then she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star who wants to help her break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for him is to stay away, but it turns out staying away might be harder than she thought.
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What Makes It Plane Worthy?
I pre-ordered GIRL AGAINST THE UNIVERSE because I had heard such EXCELLENT things about it from some trusted reviewer friends. And there was a great pre-order incentive for some signed swag so that was an added bonus! BUT THE BOOK WAS SO AMAZING THAT I WANT TO BUY IT A BILLION MORE TIMES AND JUST HAND IT OUT TO RANDOM PEOPLE WALKING DOWN THE STREET. The main thing about this one that I liked was that it looked at risk and taking chances and how your mind can play tricks on you but that shouldn’t stop you from moving forward. I definitely recommend it if you want to make a mark on this world.
TO ALL THE BOYS I LOVED BEFORE
Author: Jenny Han
Series: To All The Boys I've Loved Before #1
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: April 15, 2014
Summary:
What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once? Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.
Purchase:
What Makes It Plane Worthy?
I was genuinely surprised at how much I liked this. It is just so cute and amazing. It has my favourite trope and my favourite book boyfriend, Peter K. I would recommend having the other two books as backup because you will tear through this one and need MORE. Also did you see this is going to be a NETFLIX SHOW???
Describe FAT GIRL ON A PLANE in 10 words or less.
Kelly deVos: Fat girl dreams of being the next great fashion designer.
What genre do you find yourself writing in most? Is this the same as what you read the most?
Kelly deVos: I try to read across as many genres as I possibly can, so I think I’m a bit of a reading omnivore. As a writer, I’m more interested in writing compelling female characters than in sticking with any one particular genre. FAT GIRL ON A PLANE is a YA Contemporary but my current work-in-progress is a YA political thriller. The common thread is that both books have heroines who are trying to succeed in fields traditionally dominated by men. In FAT GIRL, Cookie is in fashion, where the management has typically been male, and my new MC is a girl coder in computer science which is still very male dominated.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
Kelly deVos: Right now, I just want to keep writing books and hopefully find people who want to read them. I have a few things on my bucket list, like going to conferences and having my book in one of those subscription boxes like OwlCrate or Uppercase Box. We’ll see what develops. Wish me luck!
What was your favourite scene to write in FAT GIRL ON A PLANE?
Kelly deVos: I loved writing the scenes where Cookie was designing and creating clothes. I had so much fun imagining what she would sew and wear.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Kelly deVos: I had my younger self very much in mind when I wrote FAT GIRL. As a teenager, I desperately wanted to be a writer but I allowed my perceptions of my weight to really undermine me and prevent me from achieving my goals. It took me a long time to learn to love myself at any size and just put myself out there and go for it. I would tell myself that a fat girl can be a writer and get a book deal!
What makes Cookie's story so special? What inspired you to tell this story?
Kelly deVos: I feel like I wasted a lot of time trying to move from a teenager who allowed myself to be sidelined by fatphobia to an adult capable of loving myself and advocating for myself. Writing this book, I was really motivated by the hope that today’s teens would not waste the kind of time that I did with this process.
What were the easiest and most difficult aspects of writing two timelines?
Kelly deVos: One part of my writing where I can constantly trying to improve is in creating transitions between scenes. Writing FAT GIRL in two timelines made things a bit easier for me in that respect because big transitions aren’t necessarily expected. The difficult part was managing the reveal of information to the reader. I had to be very strategic with character development such that Cookie didn’t come across as a flat character but that big reveals didn’t occur too early.
A third generation native Arizonan, Kelly deVos can tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about cactus, cattle and climate. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. Kelly is represented by Kathleen Rushall of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Her debut novel, FAT GIRL ON A PLANE, will be published on 6/5/18 by Harlequin Teen and her work has been featured in Normal Noise and 202 Magazine.
Kelly is also a passionate advocate for body positivity and fat acceptance.
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