2019
Lily and her mother are overweight, her mother possibly
morbidly so. Lily totally lacks
confidence at school. She has no friends
and she is bullied. Then Dad intervenes.
He puts Lily on a fitness regime and then introduces her to a gym where she
learns to box.
Lilly becomes fitter and gains more confidence. She finds
some friends. Rosie becomes a particularly close friend and they briefly start
a lesbian relationship. But Lily has to
fight Rosie in the ring and she wins, but injures her friend. Their friendship cools
a little.
Lily stops going to the gym for a while but does return eventually. Her friendship with Rosie continues but is
not as intense.
Meanwhile Mum begins to take a few steps to get her own body
under control.
We are left with hope at the end: Lily seems set to continue with her boxing and
her new friendships. Mum is taking steps
to deal with her own problems.
The whole novel is written in verse. This makes it quite a quick read but the emotional
intensity remains intact. The first person
narrative helps us to feel close to Lily. Mum (Bernadette) also has a few interjections
and again uses a first person narrative.
The novel is 308 pages long in hard back. It uses as simple
font for Lily and an adult one for Bernadette.
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