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outofbluebooks

Out of the Blue

Italian book blogger. Loves Jane Austen, ice cream, and the colour blue.
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things - Carolyn Mackler Froggy Welsh the Fourth is trying to get up my shirt.
This is the third Monday that he's come over to my apartment after school. Every week we go a little further, and today, on September twenty-third at 3:17 P.M., he's begun inching his fingers across my stomach and towards my bra.
"Virginia?"
I'm not sure whether Froggy is saying my name as a prelude to a question or whtether he's uttering it in ecstasy. As much as I wish it were the latter, I conclude that it's the former. We're only fifteen, after all.



Fifteen-year-old Virginia Shreves is the main character in Carolyn Macker's The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. I swear this book deserves an award just for the wonderful title. How can you not love it? However, despite the humorous title, the book is not all laughs as it could seem. There are a lot of serious issues going on here.

Virginia has a bigger-than-average body, which comes complete with an inferiority complex. She has her own Fat Girl Code of Conduct, and feels inferior to the other members of her perfect family, which includes a beautiful, skinny sister who works in Africa for the Peace Corps, and a rugby star, popular college student for a brother. Her mother is an adolescent psychologist while her father is a successful businessman.

Things seem perfect in the Shreves family... until a telephone call with a terrible accusation comes, and things will never be the same. Throughout the book, Virginia learns to let her inner self shine and express her ideas. I loved her character and personality: she turns from insecure girl to decise teenager in a very believable way. The dynamics inside the Shreves family fel very real and realistic.

I'd recommend this book to all the girls who have issues with their bodies, and to all the mothers of teenage daughters.