How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love

How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love

by Ken Baker

Angel is the darling of her parents' eyes.  She is perfect, skinny, popular, and basically everything a parent could ask for.

However, this book isn't about Angel.  

It's about Emery.

She's the second daughter.  She was named after an emery board after her mother got a manicure while pregnant.  (Angel was named so because she was a blessing from the angels above.)  Emery has always been a few sizes too large with a real addiction to fast food and snacks, which is a problem for the more health-conscious family.  As the child of a minor basketball player and a former professional cheerleader, Emery just doesn't fit into her assigned role.

When an opportunity comes for her to help make her family famous, kick-start her sister's career, become popular, and lose a few pounds, Emery's resistant, but signs the paperwork anyway in order to help save her family home from being taken back by the bank.

What follows is a reality show nightmare with hidden cameras, production teams, people who fake friendship to get some air time, and a weekly weigh-in during which Emery is forced to wear a bikini on live TV.

But we all know that reality TV isn't all that real and Emery discovers that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than even she knew.

Final thoughts: This started off as a pretty decent read, though a little unrealistic when it came to her weight.  She's just under 200lbs but, for some unknown reason, she's so fat that her bikini completely disappears under her fat?  Ummm... no.  That's not happening at that weight.  The idea of losing 50 pounds in 50 days is unhealthy no matter what, but there's a portion in time when Emery cuts her calories down to around 800 a day, while also taking laxative tea and exercising way too much.  That's extremely unhealthy and there are no real consequences for Emery for those decisions, which sends the wrong message to girls who are reading this.  While Emery's YouTube rants are well done and make a great deal of sense, the ending is just a complete mess.  It didn't so much end as just drift off with no real resolution of the issues.  Additionally, there was no falling madly in love since she was already in love when the book started.  Overall, this just wasn't that great.

Rating: 2/5