A review by lazygal
Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have by Allen Zadoff

4.0

I kind of identified with Andy, not because I was a teenage boy, but because I was a teenage fat person. It's universal: not wanting to change in front of others, the hating shopping/clothes thing, the feeling invisible except you know you're not. Unlike Andy, I wasn't in love with a Hot Girl, nor was I rescued from a bully by The Football Guy. O (Football Guy's name) is one of those sports gods who pretty much floats through high school being The Guy - the cute, everyone-has-a-crush-on, not completely intelligent, doesn't quite get what friendship really is guy. And of course Andy is thrilled, albeit a little suspicious, when O befriends him.

It takes Andy (who has quite a sense of humor about life, being fat and being a sophomore guy) a few months to figure out who he is, who he wants to be, and who his friends really are. There's betrayal, but there's some genuine stuff here that readers can relate to.

And then there's the setting: Newton MA. What's not to love about that?