Blurb:
Every year on her birthday, Ashley Perkins gets a card from her grandmother—a card that always contains a promise: lose enough weight, and I will buy your happiness.
Ashley doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the way she looks, but no amount of arguing can persuade her grandmother that “fat” isn’t a dirty word—that Ashley is happy with her life, and her body, as it is.
But Ashley wasn’t counting on having her dreams served up on a silver platter at her latest birthday party. She falters when Grandmother offers the one thing she’s always wanted: tuition to attend Harvard University—in exchange for undergoing weight loss surgery.
As Ashley grapples with the choice that little white card has given her, she feels pressured by her friends, her family, even administrators at school. But what’s a girl to do when the reflection in her mirror seems to bother everyone but her?
Through her indecisions and doubts, Ashley’s story is a liberating one—a tale of one girl, who knows that weight is just a number, and that no one is completely perfect.
Hello! I seem like a mild-mannered YA author with
occasionally pink hair who likes to write about friendship between girls and
being awesome and brave and learning how to stay true to who you are and what
you want and believe, but ACTUALLY I am very mysterious. Here are ten totally
true facts about me that may amaze and delight you but are definitely things
you did not know.
1. I type very very quickly. Like, two, three hundred words
a minute. I have to replace my keyboard at least once a week and when I go into
the computer keyboard store the computer keyboard salesperson shakes their head
at me ruefully and says, “boy, you sure do go through these like wildfire!” I
pay my money and leave.
2. My favorite book hasn’t been written yet. It hasn’t even
been thought of, but it will be. It’s getting ready to be noticed and soon it’s
going to be in someone’s head and then they’re going to be typing it so quickly
because they are so inspired (but maybe not as quickly as me) and when the book
is published I am going to see the cover and instantly recognize the book I’ve
been waiting for, for so long.
3. I kind of hate insta-love, but I’m actually a fan of both
instant coffee and instant noodles and instant gratification.
4. I look sort of person shaped but am actually a collection
of hummingbirds in a men’s London Fog trench coat. This is why I type so
quickly.
5. Every time I go to the library I am tempted to stay there
all day and then hide quietly in the stacks at closing time and when everyone
has gone home and the doors are all locked and the lights are dim, I will build
a life-size fort out of all the books in the Art section with book hold slips
for curtains and pencils for fortification and the flag will be a book about
flags. Then I will escape out the window only to return in the morning to help them
clean up and reshelve.
6. Three YA authors I would like to ride in a very small
boat with, sharing snacks and telling ghost stories, are Maggie Stiefvater, Sarah
Rees Brennan, and Julie Murphy. I have different answers for baking cupcakes
alongside, making a bed with, and setting the night sky on fire next to but I
would like to do all these things with all the YA authors that ever were. We
will be the coolest gang ever.
7. I always say that I want a pony, but secretly I am not
sure what I’d do with a pony after I have braided her hair and we have ridden
in front of the rebel army to take back the city overrun by evil and return it
to a fair and just democracy headed by a council of feminist dragons.
8. My cure for writer’s block is to write, but I still
believe napping, not writing, eating all the chocolate in the world until there
is no chocolate left, sitting with a blanket over my head and running in
circles screaming for mercy are viable options and I will not stop trying each
of them until they work.
9. If I had infinite dollars, I would start a publishing
imprint that published books by amazing diverse writers writing amazing diverse
things and each of those books would be tiny works of beautiful gold embossed
art and I would only occasionally suggest
that a character should be named after me, maybe?
10. My favorite thing about writing is that I can tell
stories that mean something to people who find meaning in them. My favorite
thing about writing is that I can make people laugh. My favorite thing about
writing is that I can write a screaming epic space battle in the middle of a
nebula on the edge of a galaxy and I don’t have to worry about the CGI cost. My
favorite thing about writing is that a book can save someone’s life, which I
know because books have saved mine. My favorite thing about writing is making
up entirely brand-new worlds and words. My favorite thing about writing is you.
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