Fat Angie (Fat Angie Series #1)

by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Overview

Winner of a 2014 Stonewall Book Award

Her sister was captured in Iraq, she’s the resident laughingstock at school, and her therapist tells her to count instead of eat. Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything?

Angie is broken — by her can’t-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. Hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn’t kept the pain (or the shouts of “crazy mad cow!”) away. Having failed to kill herself — in front of a gym full of kids — she’s back at high school just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC Romance, the kind of girl who doesn’t exist in Dryfalls, Ohio. A girl who is one hundred and ninety-nine percent wow! A girl who never sees her as Fat Angie, and who knows too well that the package doesn’t always match what’s inside. With an offbeat sensibility, mean girls to rival a horror classic, and characters both outrageous and touching, this darkly comic anti-romantic romance will appeal to anyone who likes entertaining and meaningful fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763661199
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/12/2013
Series:	Fat Angie Series , #1
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.63(w) x 8.06(h) x 0.88(d)
Lexile:	660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

e. E. Charlton-Trujillo is an award-winning filmmaker and YA novelist. They live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Charlton-Trujillo offers a hard-hitting third novel that swings between incredibly painful low moments and hard-won victories.
—Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

High school freshman Angie sees herself the way everyone else does, as “Fat Angie,” until KC Romance, “a model kind of beauty beneath the bad-girl garb,” breezes into her small, conservative Ohio town. Angie is relentlessly bullied at school, as well as belittled by her mother and adopted younger brother. Angie’s heavily medicated family can barely communicate with each other, let alone face the loss and presumed death of Angie’s older sister in Iraq. When Angie and KC bond—first platonically, then romantically—over broken homes, classic TV shows, and their respective troubled pasts, Angie gradually becomes motivated to change inside and out. Charlton-Trujillo (Feels Like Home) offers a hard-hitting third novel that swings between incredibly painful low moments and hard-won victories. The abuses Angie suffers are hard to stomach—her mother can be truly cruel (“No one is ever going to love you if you stay fat,” she tells Angie at one point)—making the happiness the teenager is able to find, both through KC’s help and her own persistence, come as a relief. Ages 14–up. Agent: Andrea Cascardi, Transatlantic Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Charlton-Trujillo offers a hard-hitting third novel that swings between incredibly painful low moments and hard-won victories.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The voice of a dry and direct third-person narrator works in a story laden with heavy topics, including war, death, suicide, cutting, bullying, and homosexuality.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

Entrancingly eccentric prose, a protagonist “jam-packed with awkward” and a military sister missing in action coalesce into a memorable romance that’s rockier than might be expected—and more realistic.
—Kirkus Reviews

Angie’s gradual grieving process, which takes her through crushing embarrassment as well as bittersweet triumph, will move readers as it takes up multiple contemporary issues and processes them with both credibility and considerable rhetorical finesse.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Angie epitomizes the hidden anger and self-abusive mentality of the traumatized victim. While she does not completely recover, Angie’s discovery of worth and direction in life leaves the reader with a hopeful ending.
—VOYA

Charlton-Trujillo’s prose has all the muscular self-confidence Angie thinks she lacks. Perhaps channeling both cummings and Block, she fills her pages with startling and often funny wordplay. In an age dominated by bland, first-person narration, her fresh style stands out and grabs readers in the most pleasing way possible. ... It’s impossible not to love Angie.
—Kirkus Reviews Online

This is a novel of many dimensions... [It] is filled with so many different elements that it will appeal to a wide range of readers.
—Library Media Connection

Beautifully written, dark and wildly funny, this book will have you crying, raging and cheering.
—Waking Brain Cells

Angie deals with some very heavy situations — war, death, first love, addiction, and alienation — but her perspective and attitude are so fresh and novel that the book transcends 'issues' status and registers as a bona fide original. Highly recommended.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Publisher

Gr 9 Up—A father who abandoned the family. A couldn't-be-bothered mother. An adopted brother who is a criminal in the making. A high school full of peers who relentlessly tease her following a failed suicide attempt at a basketball game. And the only person who really understands her-her older sister-is being held hostage in Iraq and is believed to be dead by everyone except Angie. This is Angie's life. Then a gorgeous, punk-rock chick with a mysterious past, KC Romance, begins taking an interest in her. While the teen toys with the idea that she may be "gay-girl gay," she also begins to channel her pain and uncertainty by making her sister, a former state champion, proud by trying out for the varsity basketball team. Not only does Angie make the team, but she also leads it to a pivotal win. She returns home from the game to discover that her sister's body has been found. An explosive confrontation with her mother following the burial leads her to begin to see her otherwise-cold mother through a new lens. The author ends the story with no resolution in Angie's relationships with her mother and KC, leading readers to forge their own conclusions. The voice of a dry and direct third-person narrator works in a story laden with heavy topics, including war, death, suicide, cutting, bullying, and homosexuality.—Nicole Knott, Watertown High School, CT

School Library Journal

Entrancingly eccentric prose, a protagonist "jam-packed with awkward" and a military sister missing in action coalesce into a memorable romance that's rockier than might be expected--and more realistic. Fat Angie's sister, "the fulcrum of their family machine," was captured nine months ago and shown "on Iraqi television, tied to a chair, blindfolded and bruised." Family, national news and everyone in Dryfalls, Ohio, presume she's dead--except Fat Angie. After a very public meltdown, Fat Angie faces bullying at school and "all kinds of weird sadness" at home, including maternal comments like "No one is ever going to love you if you stay fat." Into this anguish materializes KC Romance, a slang-talking new girl in combat boots and skull-and-crossbones fishnets. She defends Fat Angie; she likes Fat Angie; she calls her, simply, Angie. Angie falls "heart-forward into KC's dark eyes," and the girls are "gay-girl gay" together (their affectionate term). But Angie's tongue-tied, and KC has secret pain; a "sad awkward" keeps cropping up. Like their relationship, and like Angie's lionhearted attempt to emulate her missing sister's backbone on the basketball court, Charlton-Trujillo's prose has a peppery flavor, pointedly carbonated ("You break it. You know? My heart") and wryly funny. Unfortunately, fatness is a misery symbol--it's post–weight-loss, "not-so-plump Angie" who finds happiness. Creative prose and sharp interactions, marred only by some stereotyping; a fresh read nevertheless. (Fiction. 12-16)

Kirkus Reviews

Narrator Angela Dawe adds a snappy tone to this fast-paced story, providing a spicy backdrop for the painful experiences of Fat Angie. Angie, mocked and bullied by peers, has recently learned that her soldier sister, the only one who seems to understand her, has been captured in Afghanistan. Now, Angie is facing the fallout from her response to that development—a failed, very public, very bloody suicide attempt. Dawe builds the listener’s compassion by rounding out the the cast with portraits of Angie’s sarcastic younger brother; her belittling mother; and a new student, sassy KC Romance. KC, who is drawn to Angie and defends her when needed, is a catalyst for the heroine’s changes. Angie considers being “gay-girl gay,” discovers she shares her sister’s gift for basketball, and loses weight, ultimately finding herself. S.W. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

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