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Butter by Erin Lange
Jun. 23rd, 2014 11:14 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
”I can’t take another year in this fat suit, but I can end this year with a bang. If you can stomach it, you’re invited to watch … as I eat myself to death.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Erin Lange’s debut YA novel (shortlisted for the 2014 Waterstone’s Children’s Prize) is a blistering look at obesity, bullying and self-image through the eyes of a morbidly obese boy. Butter’s a complicated character, both a victim of bullying and an author of his own situation. I particularly loved his relationship with his parents – both his mother’s guilt and complicity in his overeating and his father’s inability to handle it. Butter’s change of fortune with the cool kids is well handled and I believed in their reactions and how their behaviour stems from boredom as much as malice. Also great is a conversation between Anna and Butter, which goes straight to the heart of the theme of perception and projection. If I’m going to nitpick, then I think that Butter’s talent for the saxophone is slightly overegged and risks coming across as compensation for his weight (although I believed in a pivotal confrontation between him and his music professor). I would have also liked some idea of there being consequences for those who egged Butter on, rather than what we get (which is rather open-ended). That said though, I thought this was a great, thought-provoking and darkly funny book and look forward to Lange’s next novel.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Erin Lange’s debut YA novel (shortlisted for the 2014 Waterstone’s Children’s Prize) is a blistering look at obesity, bullying and self-image through the eyes of a morbidly obese boy. Butter’s a complicated character, both a victim of bullying and an author of his own situation. I particularly loved his relationship with his parents – both his mother’s guilt and complicity in his overeating and his father’s inability to handle it. Butter’s change of fortune with the cool kids is well handled and I believed in their reactions and how their behaviour stems from boredom as much as malice. Also great is a conversation between Anna and Butter, which goes straight to the heart of the theme of perception and projection. If I’m going to nitpick, then I think that Butter’s talent for the saxophone is slightly overegged and risks coming across as compensation for his weight (although I believed in a pivotal confrontation between him and his music professor). I would have also liked some idea of there being consequences for those who egged Butter on, rather than what we get (which is rather open-ended). That said though, I thought this was a great, thought-provoking and darkly funny book and look forward to Lange’s next novel.
