ALA Booklist (Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 1999)

Colie Sparks expects the worst when she's sent to spend the summer with her eccentric Aunt Mira in sleepy Colby, North Carolina, while her mom, Kiki, is touring Europe on an antifat crusade. The formerly fat Kiki has found the salvation of weight loss in aerobics and has made a fortune in producing infomercials. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Colie has lost weight, too, but, unlike her mom, has retained a full complement of self-loathing, which manifests itself in sullen demeanor, bad hair, and self-mutilation (she has a lip ring). Perhaps too predictably, Colie finds her own brand of salvation in the friendship of Isabel and Morgan, waitresses at the Last Chance Cafe(last chance --get it?), and in the love of Norman, a sweetly shy teenage artist. Dessen is an absolutely wonderful writer--stylish, smart, and funny. It's unfortunate this novel doesn't have something more original to say about the perpetually vexing problem of teen body image. Nevertheless, Dessen's sensibility and her delightful gifts for language and characterization make her third novel well worth reading. (Reviewed September 1, 1999)

Horn Book (Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2000)

While spending the summer at her eccentric artist aunt's house, Colie reinvents herself with the help of two older girls who waitress with her, regaining the confidence she lost when she was overweight and picked on. Supporting characters tend to steal the show in this first-person novel, because the narrator is bland and timid by comparison, even after her transformation occurs.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A plot description of this contemporary problem novel may make it sound like a kind of Cinderella story, but Dessen's (Someone Like You) ironic sense of humor and her knack for creating characters with both quirky personalities and universal emotions set her book apart. Colie's fitness-celebrity mom (a female version of Richard Simmons) long ago motivated her to lose 45.5 pounds, but Colie feels just as insecure as she did when she was overweight, and she is a pariah at school. During Colie's 15th summer, her mother goes on an extended tour of Europe, and Colie is sent to outlandish Aunt Mira in Colby, N.C. There Colie is influenced by a singular group of mentors: the young women next door, Isabel and Morgan, who give Colie a makeover as well as a waitressing job; Mira's young boarder, Norman, who has moved out of his bullying auto-dealer dad's house so he can pursue a career in art; and Mira herself, a greeting-card illustrator who is as enormous and eccentric as she is immune to the ostracism of the locals. As readers will anticipate, Colie begins a happy metamorphosis; unexpectedly, her transformation is interrupted by the arrival of a mean-mouthed schoolmate who is all too eager to cut Colie down. Readers will lap up the snappy dialogue, colorful episodes and unexpected pearls of wisdom. The lessons Colie learns about beauty, none of them new, come across with freshness and vitality. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

Kirkus Reviews

Dessen (Someone Like You, 1998, etc.) continues her run of engagingly cast stories about women helping each other through life-altering experiences. Former fat girl Colie Sparks arrives in her aunt's small town physically fit but still bowed by memories of years of humiliation. Under the influence of eccentric Aunt Mira's rock-steady self-assurance, witnessing a marvelously contentious friendship between twenty-something waitresses Morgan and Isabel, and becoming aware of shy, artistically gifted Norman—who goes from being "so not the guy for me," to one whose smiles she feels "all the way to my toes"—Colie passes in subtly marked stages to the point where she can let her past go, although not before exacting exquisite revenge on one of her past tormenters. Rich in sharply observed relationships, deftly inserted wisdom, romances ending and beginning, and characters who are not afraid to pick themselves up and try again, Dessen's tale will leave readers thoughtful, amused, reassured—and sorry when it concludes. (Fiction. 12-15)

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-Because her aerobics-star mother is taking her famous weight-loss program to Europe, 15-year-old Colie leaves her home in Charlotte to spend the summer with her endearing but uncompromisingly unusual Aunt Mira in coastal Colby, NC. Colie has recently dropped 45 pounds, but unlike her positive-thinking mother, the teen has not succeeded in shedding her negative self-image. With this change of scene, she hopes to escape her role as social victim. Unfortunately, Mira attracts lots of negative gossip. Worse still is the reappearance of Colie's hometown nemesis who continues to spread slanderous rumors about her. Colie feels hopeless until she accepts a job in a restaurant, where two fellow waitresses, both past their high school angst, share their beauty, boy, and life-management secrets with her. Sincere, perfectionist Morgan and the more flamboyant Isabel are great characters and the workings of their friendship is smooth, insightful, and just fun to read. The nifty and not-so-nifty relationships between men and women are observed through the eyes of a teen just on the verge of exploring such things on her own level. The love interests are varied, from a deceitful professional athlete for Morgan to a sincere artist surviving as a short-order cook for Colie. Through it all, readers are shown that "ya-ya" type friendships are a balm to protect young women while they're kissing toads they thought were princes. Teens will just want to cheer when Colie realizes that she has always had within what people were looking for externally.-Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.