Artichoke's Heart By Suzanne Supplee

Author: Suzanne Supplee 
http://www.suzannesupplee.com/
Hardcover

276 pages

Non-Series

Young Adult

Published June 12th 2008 by Dutton Juvenile

Rosemary Goode is smart and funny and loyal and the best eyebrow waxer in Spring Hill, Tennessee. But only one thing seems to matter to anyone, including Rosemary: her weight. And when your mom runs the most successful (and gossipy) beauty shop in town, it can be hard to keep a low profile. Rosemary resolves to lose the weight, but her journey turns out to be about everything but the scale. Her life-changing, waist-shrinking year is captured with brutal honesty and humor, topped with an extralarge helping of Southern charm. A truly uncommon novel about an increasingly common problem.

Description taken from www.goodreads.com

May Contain Spoilers!!

Scanning the shelves at the local library, I ran across this book and it jumped out at me for obvious reasons. It had candy all over the cover! :) It seemed like it would be an easy and light read.  Let's just say that the moment I began reading, I was hooked.  The style of writing was excellent. The first chapter opens with Rosemary Goode, describing her family's efforts to get her to lose weight. Right off the bat you get a sense of Rosemary's sarcastic sense of humor, which is both funny and smart. There were a few times I found myself chuckling right out loud at her witty comebacks.  Not to say though, that she didn't have self esteem issues. 

As the description says, Rosemary is a 15 (almost 16) year old who has become addicted to food and has used food as a way to comfort herself when she was stressed out. Her highest weight came to 200 pounds. The author's description of Rosemary's weight issues were SPOT ON! The anxiety that leads to the over eating and the inevitable guilt that follows a binge, hitting on the idea that food addiction is a real problem. On top of that, the local "mean girls," AKA The Bluebirds, make sure they make Rosemary's life miserable at every opportunity. Add to that her family's well intended but misguided ways of encouraging her to lose weight-and she's got some major issues. 

After a run in with a customer at her mom's beauty salon, Rosemary decides to lose the weight.   The book touches on what girls at that age think they have to do to get that "quick fix" for weight loss, and pretty much makes a big deal about why its a bad idea to put your body through crazy diets.  During this time she also begins forming new friendships at school, as well as begins sessions with a therapist her mother wrangled her into talking too.  Rosemary begins working on gaining new insight on her eating habits and starts making wiser food choices.  She also works on the relationships within her family, especially her mother, who suddenly finds herself in a hard place herself. 

One of the main things I liked about this book is that it wasn't a straight shoot into an after school special ending.  It doesn't leave you hanging wondering what happened, but at the same time not everyone's problems are magically fixed, which is  something a lot of authors tend to do. Sometimes there is just no happy ending or easily solved situations and I feel that this book really does a good job of expressing that.  All in all I think that Rosemary's character is one that a lot of young girls will identify with. 
I'm really glad I ran across this book and I definitely recommend it!