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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Watch the TV show, skip the book..., August 14, 2010
I ordered "Huge" after falling in love with the utterly endearing ABC Family series of the same name. Screen adaptations rarely live up to their original source material, so I was expecting big things (no pun intended) from Paley's novel. But if you're like me and are interested in seeing how the book compares to the television show, you're going to be disappointed.
Beyond the title, the name of the main character, and the fact that it's set at a fat camp, the book bears few similarities to its TV counterpart. The show is everything the book is not--complex, charming, layered, sweet, funny, sad. The characters, so real and so vulnerable on screen, are nothing more than cardboard stereotypes on the page. None of the show's most interesting personalities (Alistair, Becca) are present in the book. There is no camper-counselor flirtation that parallels the George-Amber storyline, nor is there any mention of the fractured relationship between the camp director (here a bubbly redhead called "Melanie") and her father. Pretty much all of the elements that make the TV series sparkle are noticeably absent, leaving us with a straightforward "summer camp" story, and not a particularly interesting one at that.
Near the end of the book, there is a scene where Wil is caught reading "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. It's a shame that Paley, obviously familiar with Chbosky's brilliant YA novel, didn't take a few clues from that work. Because even as general young adult fiction, "Huge" falls flat. The plot is thin, the characters one-dimensional. And although it's an easy read, there is very little incentive to keep turning the page.
Skip the book and check out the television series instead.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, May 11, 2007
HUGE deals with a topic that is apparently in the media more and more these days (though I myself haven't seen it much): fat camp.
Wellness Canyon is a high-end fat camp where two very different girls, April and Wil, are paired as roommates. April has saved all year for this, despite a lack of support from her mom. She wants to lose some weight and gain the popularity she's always wanted. Wil wants to be anywhere but Wellness Canyon. Her wealthy parents have sent her there, as she's a public relations nightmare: they own the high-profile chain of Excalibur Gyms. Wil's revenge on them is to enter Wellness Canyon with a huge stash of sweets and be the first kid in camp history to actually gain weight while there.
Of course, as it's full of teenagers with raging hormones, there's more than weight loss going on at Wellness Canyon. When April and Wil start crushing on the same guy, football-playing hottie Colin, their relationship gets even more tense. Can they make it through the summer together and maybe even become friends?
A lot of HUGE is your typical summer camp story. Sasha Paley does a great job of creating at least two fleshed-out, interesting characters, though some secondary characters sometimes seem a little flat. Paley is a talented writer, but the popular-kids-are-mean message is maybe a little heavy, and, despite what the back cover says about learning to accept yourself, I felt like she was saying that being skinny is better than being fat, even if she never came out and said it.
Despite this, though, HUGE is a fairly satisfying read, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Sasha Paley writes next!
Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Kirkus Review of "Huge", September 9, 2011
HUGE (reviewed on May 1, 2007)
A clichéd, moralistic tale of lessons learned at fat camp. Two girls spar and then bond as summer roommates. Perky April has "saved all year... all of [her] birthday money. Christmas. Everything" to pay for Wellness Canyon because she wants to be thin and popular. (How birthday and Christmas gifts could possibly total "seven grand" for a girl with a single mother on disability is distractingly inexplicable.) Wil, in contrast, has rich parents who own a sleek gym chain; her fatness is their shame, so they force her to go. Both April and Wil lose weight over the summer, while they obnoxiously insult each other, become friends, kiss the same boy, plot revenge on him, fight more and make up. Paley unequivocally touts weight loss and repeatedly uses words like "waddled" about her fat characters. She also displays ignorance of physiology, equating fitness unquestionably with thinness. Appalling and simplistic. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 22nd, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3517-9
Page count: 272pp
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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