Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo is another moving young adult lit. novel that rotates on the axis of acceptance.  Angie, who is struggling to survive in the wake of her sister’s disappearance, can barely find the strength to exist.  She is brutally bullied by her peers, her brother, and even her own mother.  She refuses to accept the reality that her sister is dead.  And, she has allowed her self-talk to eat away at the person she wants to be, the person she can be.  She sees only Fat Angie.  Until…she meets K.C. Romance.  Beautiful, strong, tattoo-laden, gay-girl-gay K.C. notices her and sees, really sees Angie.  Buoyed by her relationship with the fragile, yet durable, K.C., Angie finds the strength to pick herself up and live again.    

The story is moving.  The characters are strong.  The writing style is both beautiful and painful at the same time.  I hurt for Angie, K.C., and even Wang.  I wanted to hurt for Angie’s mom, but I just couldn’t because I could not forgive her for what she did to her daughter(s).  I was actually even a little angry with e.E. because the narrator called Angie Fat Angie for a good part of the book.  I hated that.  I wanted it to stop.  Of course, the brilliance is that is does begin to stop as Angie begins to see herself as more than Fat Angie.  I was so thankful for the hopeful ending.  No, it’s not rainbows and lollipops, but “she was happy” (p. 264).  That is what we want in life, right?  We want to be happy amid the chaos, the pain, and the uncertainty.  After taking the reader on a roller-coaster of emotional ups and downs, e.E. grants this small kernel of hope…happiness.  

This is definitely a book for teens who are struggling.  The book is packed full of the gamut of struggles: body image, rejection, bullying, cutting, sexual identity, fitting in, being an individual, abusive parents, uncaring adults (who are supposed to care)…  The struggles are real.  e.E. does not hide it; however, the book gives kids a safe place to explore the pain of the struggles and see that glimmer of hope at the end.  What a great book for classroom conversations as well; even for the bully, the bigot, etc.  As Stacy Ann showed us in the book, they are struggling too.  Books like these, as I have said many times before, make us better people; readers cannot walk away without a new understanding of how others feel when they are bound by the chains of the struggle.  Books like these cause us to think twice about what we say to people who are being strangled by the struggle.  Too bad Connie did not have a book like this to read (read the book; it will make sense then).    

Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, 264 pages from Candlewick Press (2013). ISBN # 978-0-7636-6119-9

Ideal for young adult readers (and especially parents of teens who are struggling)