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A review by happyblkhippie
Savvy Sheldon Feels Good as Hell by Taj McCoy
Did not finish book. Stopped at 33%.
Ugggh! I really wanted to like this one! I was looking forward to rooting for a positive, uplifting story about a curvy Brown girl MC but this wasnt it sadly. So many things just didn't hit the mark for me. The writing, the pacing, the narrator ( I listened to the audiobook), the characters and character motivation, the dialogue between the characters, the message. It left a lot to be desired. So many things fell short for me. I got to around 33% (Ch. 10) before calling it quits.
Spoiler's below
The narrator and the writing just isn't it for me. The narrator over does the Joanie southern accent in a stereotypical way and the men's voices sound flat, dull, disinterested and don't have any difference to them.
I didn't like the writing style at all. It's like it's overly written in some areas and under written in others. The way some of the secondary characters were written seemed overly dramatiatized. Like the lady at the salon, Savvy's mom, and Joanie.
Savvy's character is written in a way that makes her seem really insecure even for someone who has body and self esteem issues. I get she's a people pleaser but something about it just doesn't seem authentic or maybe just not relatable to me. Joanie's character seems to takes center stage more than Savvy which isn't great. I also didn't love Savvy's motivation for improving her health was for a revenge body and a man iccckk! The inner dialogue writing of comparing herself to everyone else didn't seem authentic either.
The fact that Savvy ignored her sexist, asshole ex's comments multiple times and still wanted to appease and even considered taking him back??! The fact that she immediately assumed Stephen was homeless just because his clothes were a little disshelved and tattered screams privilege to me. Like why was that the first conclusion to jump to without ever asking questions? They saw each other plenty of times to establish that earlier. I understand that it's set in L.A. where homelessness is an unfortunately extremely common thing and was used as a plot point but it wasn't a good one. I just didn't connect with any of the characters. Yeah it's a no for me on many fronts.
Spoiler's below
I didn't like the writing style at all. It's like it's overly written in some areas and under written in others. The way some of the secondary characters were written seemed overly dramatiatized. Like the lady at the salon, Savvy's mom, and Joanie.
Savvy's character is written in a way that makes her seem really insecure even for someone who has body and self esteem issues. I get she's a people pleaser but something about it just doesn't seem authentic or maybe just not relatable to me. Joanie's character seems to takes center stage more than Savvy which isn't great. I also didn't love Savvy's motivation for improving her health was for a revenge body and a man iccckk! The inner dialogue writing of comparing herself to everyone else didn't seem authentic either.
The fact that Savvy ignored her sexist, asshole ex's comments multiple times and still wanted to appease and even considered taking him back??! The fact that she immediately assumed Stephen was homeless just because his clothes were a little disshelved and tattered screams privilege to me. Like why was that the first conclusion to jump to without ever asking questions? They saw each other plenty of times to establish that earlier. I understand that it's set in L.A. where homelessness is an unfortunately extremely common thing and was used as a plot point but it wasn't a good one. I just didn't connect with any of the characters. Yeah it's a no for me on many fronts.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, and Cursing