I’m the fat Puerto Rican–Polish girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve always been too much and yet not enough.
Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home—cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.
When Sugar meets Even (not Evan—his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.
Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.
Sugar was a very emotional read for me. Filled with the reality of bullying, negligence, and abuse, this is the book that opens people's eyes of what being unhealthy might be like to children that do not have a stable foundation to get healthy and care for their life.
Sugar Legowski-Gracia was an incredibly lovable character, she is a sweetheart and the way she cared for her mother and even put up with her brother Skunk was sad and I cannot believe people exists like that. It really made me think of my personal body image issues that I have had in the past and how important it is to have the right mindset about your life as well as people that can support everything that you do.
Sugar meeting Even was very genuine, he really made her feel like she was a person and not some image that was laughed at on daily basis. The realization of her problem was very touching and I felt like the author really did a good job of making me feel like I was a part of her story, going through everything with her.
I cannot believe what happened in the end. I still cannot accept it. But it is the reality of some people, although Sugar definitely was the one who would have deserved a better situation. Overall, I am in awe of the writing and the story that it told, incredibly eye-opening!
Sugar Legowski-Gracia was an incredibly lovable character, she is a sweetheart and the way she cared for her mother and even put up with her brother Skunk was sad and I cannot believe people exists like that. It really made me think of my personal body image issues that I have had in the past and how important it is to have the right mindset about your life as well as people that can support everything that you do.
Sugar meeting Even was very genuine, he really made her feel like she was a person and not some image that was laughed at on daily basis. The realization of her problem was very touching and I felt like the author really did a good job of making me feel like I was a part of her story, going through everything with her.
I cannot believe what happened in the end. I still cannot accept it. But it is the reality of some people, although Sugar definitely was the one who would have deserved a better situation. Overall, I am in awe of the writing and the story that it told, incredibly eye-opening!
