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A review by beesandbooks
Bon Bons to Yoga Pants by Katie Cross
3.0
While I enjoyed the overall message that Lexie embraces--loving herself, learning that she's good enough regardless of her appearance, and embracing a healthy lifestyle for herself only--the journey there was...not great. Knowing that this started as a Wattpad serial both makes it better and worse, because on the one hand it explains some of the disconnect between where Lexie starts and where she ends (which isn't totally covered by the various epiphanies she has about her weight loss journey) but it also doesn't excuse the unhealthy way weight and health are treated by all the characters, even the most health-positive ones.
As a short novel, it's understandable that a lot of the side characters don't have much development but some of them have...none. This might be resolved later in the series, I'm not sure (and I'm not sure I want to keep reading to find out) but especially Lexie's mother, sister, and Mira don't have much development. There's no cathartic moment where Lexie explains to her mother how her criticisms and beauty-centric health concerns continue to trigger her desire to binge eat, something that still happens in the last of only two real moments of interaction between Lexie and her mother described. Additionally, despite being the underlying focus for the novel's plot, Kenzie is given no personality traits outside of being skinny and obsessed with her wedding. "Sisterly bonding" is referred to several times by Lexie, but never seen after their first Zumba class.
Mira, though apparently planning all along to help Lexie discover her own happiness, does still focus heavily on the not-so-motivating parts of weight loss. She also has no character development whatsoever.
Rachelle and Bradley are the only side characters with any personality to speak of, revealing their vulnerable sides and supporting Lexie so long as what she does makes her happy. Even then, Lexie's descriptions of Rachelle are downright cruel and ultimately self-centric, as Lexie criticizes the weight she hates so much about herself and is convinced that Rachelle will somehow intervene in her diet and exercise program because Lexie takes anyone else's motivation to be healthy as a personal affront to her for much of the story.
The way Lexie describes herself when she's overweight, the way she rejoices in the particular features of weight loss, and the way she unhealthily goes about getting "healthy" are all...uncomfortable. First of all, the way she constantly describes her own body doesn't seem genuine but instead a poor attempt at understanding how an eating disorder (which is what Lexie has in the beginning and arguably the rest of the novel) affects one's mind. When she begins cutting calories, though there are smatterings of real health advice about buying the right kind of food and consuming the right calories, she engages in a lot of unhealthy behaviors that come dangerously close to encouraging disordered eating. I remember particularly a comment made by Mira that they should avoid eating before working out in the morning in order to double their losses, despite the fact that in general it's accepted that a protein filled snack or meal is good for providing the energy needed for exercise first thing in the morning. What's more, whenever Lexie does specify what she ate (outside of her meals with Bradley or Megan) it's always in small, unhealthy portions. A single yogurt cup, a banana, an orange... While these would be healthy snacks, Lexie repeatedly eats these as meals in order to keep her caloric intake dangerously low. Between that and her early binge eating, almost every description of food in the novel describes disordered eating.
Of course, the story of Lexie Green is her struggle with her bad relationship with food, but her "triumph" at the end isn't so much a triumph as a pendulum swing in the other direction, which was almost certainly not the intention of the author. If a little more care had been taken in emphasizing that Lexie IS consuming a healthy amount of calories, just altering what calories she's eating (which is heavily implied by references to "clean eating" and learning how to shop healthy) then I think the uncomfortable feeling I and other readers have gotten from this novel would be at least somewhat alleviated.
As a short novel, it's understandable that a lot of the side characters don't have much development but some of them have...none. This might be resolved later in the series, I'm not sure (and I'm not sure I want to keep reading to find out) but especially Lexie's mother, sister, and Mira don't have much development. There's no cathartic moment where Lexie explains to her mother how her criticisms and beauty-centric health concerns continue to trigger her desire to binge eat, something that still happens in the last of only two real moments of interaction between Lexie and her mother described. Additionally, despite being the underlying focus for the novel's plot, Kenzie is given no personality traits outside of being skinny and obsessed with her wedding. "Sisterly bonding" is referred to several times by Lexie, but never seen after their first Zumba class.
Mira, though apparently planning all along to help Lexie discover her own happiness, does still focus heavily on the not-so-motivating parts of weight loss. She also has no character development whatsoever.
Rachelle and Bradley are the only side characters with any personality to speak of, revealing their vulnerable sides and supporting Lexie so long as what she does makes her happy. Even then, Lexie's descriptions of Rachelle are downright cruel and ultimately self-centric, as Lexie criticizes the weight she hates so much about herself and is convinced that Rachelle will somehow intervene in her diet and exercise program because Lexie takes anyone else's motivation to be healthy as a personal affront to her for much of the story.
The way Lexie describes herself when she's overweight, the way she rejoices in the particular features of weight loss, and the way she unhealthily goes about getting "healthy" are all...uncomfortable. First of all, the way she constantly describes her own body doesn't seem genuine but instead a poor attempt at understanding how an eating disorder (which is what Lexie has in the beginning and arguably the rest of the novel) affects one's mind. When she begins cutting calories, though there are smatterings of real health advice about buying the right kind of food and consuming the right calories, she engages in a lot of unhealthy behaviors that come dangerously close to encouraging disordered eating. I remember particularly a comment made by Mira that they should avoid eating before working out in the morning in order to double their losses, despite the fact that in general it's accepted that a protein filled snack or meal is good for providing the energy needed for exercise first thing in the morning. What's more, whenever Lexie does specify what she ate (outside of her meals with Bradley or Megan) it's always in small, unhealthy portions. A single yogurt cup, a banana, an orange... While these would be healthy snacks, Lexie repeatedly eats these as meals in order to keep her caloric intake dangerously low. Between that and her early binge eating, almost every description of food in the novel describes disordered eating.
Of course, the story of Lexie Green is her struggle with her bad relationship with food, but her "triumph" at the end isn't so much a triumph as a pendulum swing in the other direction, which was almost certainly not the intention of the author. If a little more care had been taken in emphasizing that Lexie IS consuming a healthy amount of calories, just altering what calories she's eating (which is heavily implied by references to "clean eating" and learning how to shop healthy) then I think the uncomfortable feeling I and other readers have gotten from this novel would be at least somewhat alleviated.