Review: Sweet by Emmy Laybourne

First, thanks to Feiwel and Friends, along with Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  Now, I could have sworn that I had this downloaded a ways back, but maybe I had just picked it as a Waiting on Wednesday book one time, and was mistaken about that.  Then it was published, and I figured I'd have to wait to get a copy to read.  But it showed up on Edelweiss, at least I found it, and downloaded it.  I was really excited to read this one, not just because the synopsis sounded really good, but also because I really enjoyed the Monument 14 series by her as well.  While Sweet isn't a post-apocalyptic book really, I would definitely have to say that this author knows how to write a good "teens in a deadly crisis" story.  And in a way, both stories have their own zombie type of people, again, without being actual zombies in the most well known definition. 

The story is told in alternating chapters by two main characters.  One is Laurel, a pretty normal girl.  You might call her a bit of a wallflower.  Her favorite clothes include boots.  Nothing really dressy or trendy.  Her best friend, Viv(actually her rich, divorced father), got them tickets to be on a really big cruise event.  The premiere of a new weight loss fad.  It is as diet sweetener called Solu, and it is supposed to be a miracle, possibly solving the obesity problem by helping the user drop a ton of weight in no time, with really nothing else needing to be done!  Laurel isn't really worried about losing weight, she's find with her curves, and once the ship gets started moving, there's no way she can take it at first, because she's experiencing seasickness to an extremely embarrassing degree.  And that's where our 2nd main character comes in.

Tom Forelli is a former child star.  He's now trying to get his career going again after a horrible movie choice, as well as trying to get out from under his child start personal of "Baby Tom-Tom".  He was a chubby kid, but now he's grown up and has really started taking care of himself.  He eats right, and works out every day. All according to what his personal trainer, and best friend, advises him to do.  His publicists booked him the gig of being the host for this cruise, interviewing the passengers, promoting the Solu, etc.  He also doesn't really try the sweetener, as it doesn't really fit his eating plan, since it is in the desserts on the boat, ones that he doesn't really plan to eat.  While the plan is for him to "hook up" with a beautiful celebrity reality star, think Kardashian with a little exotic-ness thrown in, he feels a tug toward the cute, normal girl, who he meets when she throws up on his shoes.  You guessed it, that was Laurel. 

The two will meet again in a few mishaps, and then seek each other out as they both are attracted to each other, as well as feeling that the other passengers taking the Solu begin to get a little wild.  Not just a little wild, but obviously addicted in a short time to the substance.  It all goes horribly wrong with the Solu, leading to deaths, and even killing just to get more.  And once Tom finds out it isn't all it was hyped up to be, he wants to do an expose report, even against the advice of his publicist, who is herself addicted to the Solu.  All of this has to be done, hoping that they can survive the mass hysteria and melee caused by the Solu addicts. 

It was a fun story, funny, yet suspenseful. Some surprises on where it would go, and what was actually causing the problem.  I didn't even get what was the final turning point at the end ahead of time, and I like it when an author can surprise me like that.  I highly recommend another Emmy Laybourne book, a standalone I would think this time. Even though there is that little comment at the end, that makes you say, "uh-oh!"

Review: How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love

Remember how I told you that the people in the booths at BEA seemed much friendlier this year?  At least compared to when I was there two years ago that is.  Well, this is a book that I saw sitting in a publisher's booth and asked if I could have a copy of, and they were nice enough to let me have it!  The publisher was Running Press Teens, a part of the Perseus Books Group. 

This book intrigued me because it was about a girl who was overweight, and ended up going on a reality tv show to lose weight.  She had to lose 50 pounds in 50 days.  Now, she wasn't unhappy, not completely, with how she was.  She lived in a family of skinny people.  Her dad was a former athlete turned motivational speaker.  Her sister was an underwear model.  And her mother was a former Laker Girl.  So she really didn't fit in.  But her boyfriend, who was large himself, over 300 pounds, loved her, and she loved him.  But one day she found that her family was behind on their mortgage payments, and she knew that she had to agree to the show so they could win the million dollars.  As the show goes on, she does learn good habits, but things keep setting her back.  Finding out her family may not actually believe in her, or at least some of her family.  The stress of eating so much less than she was used to could lead to sneaking food.  The fame, going to the movies she sees that she has fans.  And then maybe learning things about her family and boyfriend that are shocking, whether they are true or not.  And finally, even picking up some bad weight loss habits in order to try to win the show when things seemed to get behind.

This book is really  a good look into what goes on in the mind of overweight girls.  As someone who has been in that state many times in my life, including at the present time, I definitely identified with things that she may have said or done.  I really liked how the show had her do video posts as the show was going on.  Her posts were very insightful.  I liked how she would realize the things that she did weren't always healthy, either way.  My one complaint is the ending.  While I think what happens is a good way to end it, I feel the book did it very abruptly, and I was left wanting to know more details about how all of it came out, and what happened to everyone.  That's just me. 

Overall it was a really good read, and I will be donating my free copy to the high school library where I work.

Tales from the Scale: Woman Weigh in on Thunder Thighs, Cheese Fries, and Feeling Good...at Any Size by Erin J. Shea

A few years ago, when I really got into losing weight, and lost about 35-40 pounds, and I was actually at a weight that would have been easy to manage, and I was walking 20 miles a week, I was in a diet/weight loss memoir book obsession.  I would even search the book database whenever I was working part time at Barnes and Noble to find and order more books to read.  Tales from the Scale was the last one I had to read, and it was basically full of short stories, or I believe actually blog posts from 7 different weight loss blogs.  The stories were pretty good, although many were harder for me to relate to as they were women who had been overweight their whole lives, and for me it only started once I got out on my own and was able to begin eating whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and whenever I wanted.  I started this book back in 2010, and it ended up sitting in my downstairs half bath, to be read whenever I didn't bring a book with me.  Sorry if that is TMI, but I feel like if there isn't a book there, that time is wasted!  Soon other books joined it, and then magazines, and it got to be the back of the basket of things to read in there.  Lately I'm back to the point weight-wise before I lost all that weight, and so pulled it out to try to help get myself motivated again to get back to work on being in shape and healthy again.  As I read through it, I know that I marked several different stories that had things that really stuck out to me.  So since this isn't a story for me to give you the synopsis of, I'm going to just talk about a few of those marked passages in this post.
One of the first passages, by Julie Ridl, talks about how the weight doesn't just appear suddenly.  But as it does, you begin to feel people treating you differently. As if because you can't control your weight, you must not be able to control the department at work you're in charge of or trying to get a promotion to be in charge of.  And then, to get out of it, you have to completely change things.  This is something I did back when I was losing weight.  I began cooking, a lot.  And really, since I am single and live alone, cooking is not something I'm big on doing.  And as I quit cooking for myself, the weight has come back.  So going back now and looking at that really helps.
An early entry by Heather Lockwood talks about how she didn't learn much about nutrition or portion size when she was a kid.  And I feel the same.  My mom served us healthy meals.  But I don't remember anything being said about portion size, and actually, other than basic vegetables like green beans and peas, we never had the really weird (to me anyway) vegetables that I still won't eat to this day, like broccoli, and cauliflower, asparagus, etc.  And back then it didn't matter.  I didn't worry about food, because since most of it was controlled by my parents at home, I didn't seem to gain weight, I was in no way "skinny" but I wasn't in any way overweight really either.  I'm short though, so the not exercising, and not watching portions once I got on my own, soon caught up.
In one part by Lori Ford, she talks about how she'll start off really good, but then if something gets stressful, all the hard work for the day/week can be just lost to having a junk food snack just to make it till the next planned meal time.  Part of the problem is what she, or I, bring to work for eating.  What sucks is when I get there, and I don't want to eat what I brought.  It doesn't sound good.  So then, I'm ruined for the day, which often leads my brain to be done for the week, to say I'll start over and do it right next week.  When I was begin successful I was able to start over the next day, or even as soon as I caught myself.  And that's where I need to get back to.
I won't go on too much more about my struggle, I will just say that this book is good for feeling like you aren't alone, there are others out there struggling like you are.  It may not be the "success" story some of the other memoirs I've read have been, not to say the authors haven't been successful, but it is often just about how they feel during the process, and it is good to share those feelings I think.
Not the best weight loss book I'd read, but still has some very good parts.  I have a ton of bookmarked pages at the beginning.  I intend to go back and read through those before I decided what to do with this book, garage sale, pass it on through a giveaway, etc.

First Friday Post

Tonight was a favorite Friday night for me because I got to see two movies: The Time Traveler's Wife and District 9. So I'll now do my first movie reviews on this new blog.

The Time Traveler's Wife: This was a really good book. It's been a while since I read it, but I think the movie stayed pretty true to the book. They bill it as a love story, and it is. No matter what anyone says.

District 9: Pretty good as well. An interesting new slant sort of on alien type movies. A little of the camera work that makes me kind of sick, although I'm not sure if it was that, or all the cinnamon sugar powder I put on the popcorn. But I spent part of the movie feeling nauseated. Still kind of do. So I got a diet 7-up out of the fridge when I got home.

I walked either 9 or 10 miles today, lost track for sure. Didn't quite make my goal, I still have about half a pound, but I decided that I will go ahead and open the laptop tomorrow. I figure I've worked hard all summer. I've denied myself a lot to stay on my diet, and I've walked so much that while it was a good summer, and I enjoyed walking, I didn't get any days really to just lay around all day in my pj's, which is part of what makes a teacher's summer enjoyable. So I'm also thinking tomorrow I will take a day off from walking, even though I have the time. I'm going to pretty much stay at home all day, until I go to work, or possibly also to have lunch with a friend. I will probably do my Wii fit some though, and follow my WW diet still. But it will be nice to sleep in as well. Even though I still didn't get up as early as school will make me, I rarely slept in much really, so I plan to do that tomorrow. I wish it would rain tomorrow though, that would make a perfect sleep in morning.

The pain today was still enough to make me scream. And while walking didn't bother it, as soon as I would sit down for even a minute, I'd be in pain again. So I called the doctor's office to find out if I could take tylenol like my brother said. They said I could. So far, the extra strength tylenol is a miracle worker. Now, I wasn't calculating correctly the time to take my second dose, and so I took it a few hours early, which could also possibly be what led to me feeling sick at the movies.

Okay, off to watch tv and go to bed soon. Tomorrow I may do my first book review on this blog as my main blog of the day.