To be Honest...

I really couldn't assign any stars to To Be Honest, but it wasn't because I thought it deserved zero stars, it was just that I don't know how I feel about this book.
Let me just say that I KNOW David Levithan would burn this book!  I mean, the cover alone would make Levithan and Lagerfeld have heart attacks!  (Even though they are SUPER healthy and SUPER fit, I am sure!)
There is one thing that I didn't feel mixed about, that I just plain liked and appreciated, and that was Savannah's sister being gay but it not being a big deal!  Because love is love!  So that part was very cool.  Very cool.
But the weight issue was hard...
Admittedly, I have my weight issue.  I also feel it is very funny that NOW body acceptance is in, where was it when I was heavier!  hahah!  And I love that when I go to stores I see kids clothing in all sizes, that is just really neat.   And I can't imagine what it would have been like to grow up that way.
But...
yes, there is always a but with me, huh?
I do think that the book is super tough on Savannah's mom.   I get Savannah's mom.  I do.  I am Savannah's mom, except I did the weight loss the "right" way, it taking nearly four years to lose 217 lbs.
This a very good piece.
I just don't know how I feel.  I really don't.  I think that this book is just a hard one for me. I would love to hear from others. 

David Levithan and Roxane Gay

I think that David Levithan would enjoy parts of Hunger:  A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay.  He would probably be very happy with the reports of the prejudice and pain that a person of size has endured. 
Last week I heard him interviewed on MashReads he was talking about his book Every Day and the fact that it is becoming a movie.  Oh, actually it is a movie!  I didn't hear much about it, but that doesn't mean anything!  I am not very aware of pop culture! 
Anyway.  It was interesting because he did bring up the issue of being accused of fat shaming.  But it was amazing to me how he dismissed it.  Not so much that he denied it, as he did when he had a Facebook messaging conversation with me when the book came out, but that he played it off as a big misunderstanding and that he wasn't doing that and blah blah.  But then as we have seen in his writing, he does the same thing in the next book. 
But I don't want to make this all about David Levithan.  I just want to recommend it to him.
Maybe he will learn something.
This is an incredible book.  I heard an interview with Roxane Gay and I know she doesn't want people to be all like "she gets me" and all of that mushy stuff and I respect that, but man, I did relate to this book.  And I hope that is okay. 
I know that Ms. Gay doesn't want or need the respect and praise and good feelings of a no one like me.  But man, she has it.  I know that my opinion of her intelligence and bravery don't matter, but man, I just want to say to anyone who is thinking about reading this book-- please read it.  It is very powerful and very wow.  And yeah, I do think that Ms. Gay is brave and brilliant and has written an incredible book here.  And I know that my thanks won't ever be read by her but I am just putting it out there.  As someone who was once 338 lbs is now 121 but may very well be 338lbs or 38lbs or 538lbs one day, I really resonated with this book. 
I don't love food, like Ms. Gay says she does, though.  I hate food.  I hate that I want it and need it and use it.  I am working on it.  But that is neither here nor there.  This is just a fantastic book. 

David Levithan Loves Super Models!

I mean he must, right?  Because, as Mr. Levithan believes THIN IS IN!  Shockingly, I don't know much about the model industry!  So this book really was my first exposure.  I don't know if it is a common experience, but from other things I have heard and seen in snippets on tv, it seems like it might be.  I was also shocked to read about this guy who seems just like a first class David Levithan. 
I wish the very best for Victoire Dauxerre and thank her for the courage it took to write this book.  It must have been a painful, but hopefully empowering task. 

Being David Levithan

Remember that movie Being John Malkovich?  I liked that movie.  This Impossible Light would be another hard one for David Levithan, I bet.  He would really love parts of it, I bet!  But like The Art of Starving, her goal to be thinner and thinner and thinner is seen as a bad thing!  Oh Mr. Levithan, when will the world understand that completely inclusive acceptance isn't for EVERYONE!
This was a painful read for me in a different way from Crooked Saints.  It was like The Art of Starving.  I could really identify with the thoughts going through this young gal's head.
The problem that I had with it was that it wrapped up so quickly, like when Dorothy had CFS.  But maybe that does happen for some people with eating disorders and we don't know what happened, but it did seem like she made a lot of headway in a little time.  Which is great for her!   But I just wonder how realistic?  I am not sure, but it feels a little fast.  Jason Reyond's books often leave things really out there...MAJOR cliffhangers.  And that is something I LOVE and LOATHE!  And also what makes them so great.  I am not saying that the book had to get all Reyonldsy with the ending, but a little more time?  A little more uncertainty?  I don't know.  But I could recommend it.  Just not a Printz for me.  Lily Myers has a big following and experience with the issue, so maybe I am completely wrong about it needing to take more time?

I Bet David Levithan Would Be Cheering Him On!

Reading The Art of Starving, I couldn't help but think of David Levithan.  How proud he must have been of Matt for the way he wanted so badly to thin!  If he were shipping characters he would probably be shouting, "Tell that to Julia who needs to lose a few pounds!"
Excellent book.  I loved so much about it that it has to be my number 2 pick, behind Dear Martin for the Printz Award. 
Funny and frightening and beautiful and painful and so real. 
I admit though that I wonder if I felt so much for this book because I myself struggle with food.  Those voices in Matt's ear were so familiar.  Especially the way he envied those around him who seemed able to eat without worry.  I loved this book.  If this is Mr. Miller's first novel, wow, I can't wait to read the next one. 

David Levithan would HATE Edie!

Dear Edie Middlestein,

I hope you never meet David Levithan in heaven.  If you do, run the other way!  He hates fat people!  

Love,

Ing

I don't even think Levithan would be able to get through The Middlesteins.

This book is another BOB for Bethel Park and I did like it a lot more than The Vacationers because it did have more action, was more complex, maybe.  Plus, I do have a soft spot for people of size.  I mean, I am a person of size.  I was a person of a bigger size before, but today was weigh-in day and while I was not at goal of 128, I was only 129, so I guess I am doing okay.  But if ONLY David Levithan would let me know for sure!

Ahem.

Sorry.

Anyway...this is another book that is so not my kind of book.  And yet I did find myself caring about the characters, very much so.  The only reason I gave it three stars (and really it is 3 1/2) is because it was not my usual book and because I found Edie's children to be super-unlikable, though I did like her grandchildren!

Was this a dysfunctional family?  I am still not ready to tag it as such.  Again, it seemed like more of a "normal" family to me, with faults and flaws and problems.  Is that dysfunctional?  Not sure...

No WAY!

Did you know that Judy Collins was named after Judy?  I had no idea!  But it is true!  Cravings:  How I Conquered Food was a book I saw in a library during my recent trip out west.  We were in the library in St. George, Utah and I saw it and immediately downloaded it from audible.  Listening to this book, I completely resonated with everything Ms. Collins said about her problems with food.
I found this book to be really, really good in that I think that Ms. Collins was very humble and informative.  I really disagree with the negative comments I read about this book on goodreads and can only think that those who wrote them have not shared the same battle that Ms. Collins has, but for me, almost every sentence regarding food was met with "Yes!  Yes!  I understand!" from me.
I don't know a lot of Ms. Collin's music.  I do love the songs I do know, just two of them Send in the Clowns and Both Sides Now.   I know that Frank's versions have been panned greatly, but I love them, too.  Ms. Collins's versions are much better, of course, and only they can bring me to tears, literally.  Especially SITC.
I also loved that Collins received a call from Joan Rivers after Collins's son committed suicide.  Joan told her that she had to keep working, like Rivers did when her husband killed himself.  That was our Joan.  Reaching out to people.  Loving them.  She was not the mean person some mistake her to be.
I was also really interested in the background of dieting.  I loved hearing about Lord Byron.  I loved the quotes she chose to introduce each chapter.  I just found this book to be a great book.  I don't think that I could do the Grey Sheet deal.  I don't know if that would help me.
Now that I am struggling maintaining without feeling that I will regain, and thus ruin all my chances of being approved by David Levithan, I am willing to try anything, but I just don't know if Grey Sheet would be more of the same, regarding restricting, or it would be freeing.
In any case, criticisms that Ms. Collins name-drops are kinda weak.  And I think that her whole approach to the book is a humble one.  She is very quick to say that it might work for you, it might not.  I highly recommend this book.
The criticism that those with eating disorders must learn to "make friends with food" rather than "conquer" it is not valid for everyone.  I would that is akin to saying and alcoholic must make friends with Jack Daniels or a heroin addict must learn to just hang out with opioids.  Just something to consider.

Toughie

This was a tough book.  It was a hard book.  A sad book.  And it was almost like Almost Perfect, one I couldn't finish because it was just so sad and hard and tough.  I really like Sara Zarr's books and so I stayed with this one, but I had to listen to it backward!  Just to make sure the end wasn't just a devastating mess.  I wasn't worried it would be a cheesy, "all's well that ends well" deal, and knowing Zarr's other books like I do, I probably should have realized that this would be just a disaster book, designed just to play on emotions, but I really came to care so much about the characters that I just couldn't not know that hope would still be alive, even if on life-support.
Great, great book.

It's Tricky

This was a great song!  But it has nothing to do with A Trick of the Light by an author who was unfamiliar to me before I checked out the audio, Lois Metzger.  This was a good, good book.  I have always felt very uncomfortable thinking about anorexia because I have been morbidly obese for most of my life.  There is a girl in ATOTL who is in the hospital with Mike and she is a compulsive eater.  She has that whole humor thing going on:  I will make fun of me before you make fun of me.  But she has an eating disorder, just like Mike does.  The disorder has just manifested itself in a different way.  I don't know if I have an eating disorder, but when a person (who happens to be male) was a young adult, he was anorexic.  And it was funny (not funny-funny, but enlightening-funny) because we both had the exact same thoughts about our bodies.  We both hated our own bodies, with an incredible passion.  A loathing, really.  He went one way and I went another to cope.  ATOTL is told from the POV of anorexia.  I found it particularly effective to listen to and so I would suggest an audio read for this one, but I am sure the book is powerful as well.