Something
of Substance
By: Tia Souders
By: Tia Souders
Releasing March
28th, 2018
Blurb
Seventeen-year-old Grace Michaels is determined to be thin, even if she dies trying.
Seventeen-year-old Grace Michaels is determined to be thin, even if she dies trying.
Part of the in-crowd at
Providence High, she is steps away from being asked out by the most desired guy
at school, winning a prom queen nomination, and her parents’ approval. If she
can just get skinny enough, be pretty enough, and popular enough.
But Grace is thin on the
outside and fat on the inside. No amount of weight-loss ever seems enough. Convinced
the melting pounds will solve her problems, every pound lost brings her closer
to her goals. But flesh and bone can only hide the weight of her secret for so
long before it kills her.
Fans of the emotional and
thought-provoking contemporary YA fiction, such as Before I Fall, Tell Me Three
Things, and All The Bright Places will fall in love with Souder’s
heart-wrenching novel, SOMETHING OF SUBSTANCE.
…Coming March 28th, 2018!
Be notified when SOMETHING OF SUBSTANCE releases – Subscribe to Tia’s mailing list: http://eepurl.com/deIqg5
Excerpt:
I count the days until
prom like I count calories. Ninety-eight days. Thirteen hundred calories.
I almost puke at the number.
Thirteen hundred. Maybe. I’m not even sure, which scares me more than the weight of the
number.
How could I not keep
track? And how could I go over? Do I really have no self-control? If I keep
this up, I’ll be right back where I started—fat and unpopular.
My forehead beads with
sweat and my fingers twitch, as I glance at my alarm clock—only three a.m. I
turn on my side, then get up, knowing there’s no falling back asleep now. Not
with all the numbers running through my head. Not with the fat I must’ve stored
throughout the night resettling on my thighs like it found its way back home.
I tip-toe away, out of
bed, afraid someone might hear me, which is unrealistic since my mother’s snore
rivals a bass drum and my father sleeps like the dead. As for my sister, Kelly,
she couldn’t care less what I do.
When I come to a stop
in front of the full-length mirror on my bedroom door, I don’t even take the
time to assess my silhouette in the moonlight. Instead, I lift the soft cotton
of my t-shirt. My eyes home in on my ribs, barely visible under a layer of fat,
then move to the paunch above the drawstring of my pajama bottoms. I poke at
the skin there and grimace at the cushion I find. All I see are the two cookies
I ate at Cara’s house last night and I wonder how many calories were in each
bite. Fifty? Twenty-five? I have no idea and my ignorance scares me. I had fun
and felt too safe, too included. I let those feelings cloud my judgment and
lull me, blanket me into false security, where I allowed myself to lose
control.
Stupid.
As I lower my shirt, I
silently berate myself, then drop to the floor and lie on my back. With closed
eyes, I cross my arms over my chest and start sit-ups. I count as I go. One. Two. Three. I do this until the
memory of the cookie fades and my abdomen aches. When I can do no more, I stand
back up and bend forward in a deep lunge. I ensure my knee touches the ground
each time, my legs at perfect ninety-degree angles. Ten laps around my room, I
tell myself, then I’ll try and go back to sleep.
I once read sleep burns
more calories than lying awake, something about your body recalibrating your
metabolism. I don’t buy it. Regardless, there’s no way sleep burns more than
lunging, so as my thighs begin to burn and catch fire, I allow the sensation to
ease the fluttering in my chest and the rise of bile in my throat.
Right lunge. It will be okay. Left lunge. I’ll be okay.
I won’t gain ten pounds from two cookies.
But I could gain one.
When I finish, slightly
sweat-damp and out of breath, but feeling a tiny bit better, I get back under
the covers of my bed. Though I’m too hot with the thick comforter pulled up
tight under my chin, I leave it there because it will make me sweat. And while perspiring
won’t burn excess fat, it might help me lose water weight, giving me the
tiniest bit of peace to help me relax into the mattress and slip off into a
light slumber.
Author Info
Tia Souders is the author of bestselling women’s fiction novel, Waiting On Hope and the upcoming award-winning young adult novel Better Than This (formerly titled Freedom Road). When she isn’t writing, she’s likely renovating their century home. She’s a wine-loving, coffeeholic, with a sweet tooth and resides on a farm in rural Ohio with her husband and children.
Giveaway:
