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librariann's review
3.0
Ages 12+ (sex talk and some language, but nothing graphic)
Fat guy Andy learns a few lessons during his sophomore year of high school. What it's like to be popular. What it's like to play football. What it's like to have people use you. A realistic and sensitive (but not sappy) guy book. I found it much more in the vein of realistic than humorous, but clearly others have found it funny, so.
A quick read, I can take it or leave it. Mike was the first to read it and thought it was okay.
Fat guy Andy learns a few lessons during his sophomore year of high school. What it's like to be popular. What it's like to play football. What it's like to have people use you. A realistic and sensitive (but not sappy) guy book. I found it much more in the vein of realistic than humorous, but clearly others have found it funny, so.
A quick read, I can take it or leave it. Mike was the first to read it and thought it was okay.
colbydcox's review
3.0
This book came with multiple promises--first, a good book about a fat main character, which is pretty hard to find, I guess. Not that I've been looking for it or anything. Second, it promised a humerous book. Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have is about a fat kid who decides he's tired of conforming and not doing what he should be able to just because he's fat. I won't say it fell flat in every way. It kept me entertained. Was it funny? Meh. It made me grin once or twice. Did it provide a good MC who didn't fit the standard MC mold? Yeah, I guess you could say so. So that means that it was the story that I didn't like. First, I didn't really buy much of the football parts at all. I don't pay attention to the sport at all, but Center seems like an improtant position. I get the whole 'this guy can kill you' part, but still, wouldn't the coach put in somebody who had, I don't know, played before? And you can really tell that the author is into theatrics. The story does lots of things that wouldn't happen in real life. Uh...yeah. So there's that. Anyways, I give this 3/5 stars. It's a pretty good book, but the whole thing was just sort of fake feeling, if you know what I mean.
abigailbat's review
4.0
It's been awhile since I read a book that I enjoyed as much as this one. Andy is a supremely likeable protagonist dealing with typical high school problems (the popular kids, a crush on a girl, divorcing parents). Solid contemporary fiction from an author who's now one I will be watching.
valeblanc's review
3.0
Unrealistic
It’s the age old dream of all high school outcasts, it’s an ok story, predictable, and the end is kinda blah.
It’s the age old dream of all high school outcasts, it’s an ok story, predictable, and the end is kinda blah.
sunbear98's review
4.0
I really loved this book. It seems a bit more middle schoolish to me, but some of the situations were very high school level. It would have gone very well in my old middle school. It just depends on the maturity of your students. This one is a keeper!
maedo's review
1.0
I wanted to like this book. Really, I did. There aren't enough teen books that demonstrate a compassionate understanding of what it's like to be young and fat and learning to love what you've got, not what other people might want you to be. Given the author's history, I can tell that this was a labor of love.
It does have some very funny moments going for it, but on the whole, the plot was bland and predictable. Everything that's supposed to happen in a "geek boy chases the popular girl" story happens here, except the boy is fat and the girl is Korean.
Additionally, there is a barrage of pop cultural references that made me cringe.
I'm sorry, Allen Zadoff.
It does have some very funny moments going for it, but on the whole, the plot was bland and predictable. Everything that's supposed to happen in a "geek boy chases the popular girl" story happens here, except the boy is fat and the girl is Korean.
Additionally, there is a barrage of pop cultural references that made me cringe.
I'm sorry, Allen Zadoff.
feeyuh's review
2.0
This book didn't blow me away like I thought it would. It was kind of funny at some parts, but overall I felt the story was predictable and very flat. I thought there was going to be much more to the story and there wasn't.
kaleidoscopemoon's review
3.0
The beginning got me hooked but the middle was confusing and at the climax i was totally surprised but it made sense how everything happened in the main characters life. But after the climax it went downhill.... Still an ok good read.
But was totally disappointed in the end, felt like it would have and could have been better.
But was totally disappointed in the end, felt like it would have and could have been better.
theartolater's review
3.0
It’s like the boy version of the teen girl YA books where the protagonist is self-conscious about their image and spends a few hundred pages dealing with it. A decent enough book, but, again, the only really different thing about it is that it’s a boy.
wordnerd153's review
3.0
Read this book in one sitting, not because it was particularly amazing, but it was certainly a worthwhile read. As someone who's been chubby all my life I could definitely relate to the main character and I appreciated the humor of his situation, even if it was a wee bit heartbreaking.