Hit Play on the video above.
The Best Thing About this Book is Biggie’s little brother, Maddux. The eleven-year-old displays the best character. He’s helpful and reliable if naive. However, his role is minor so not enough to win me over to the book itself.
Premise: Biggie is fat. It’s why no one calls him by his given name anymore. It’s also what propelled him to want to disappear from everyone else’s radar so they don’t make fun of him. For two years of high school, he got out of PE without his mom knowing it. Not anymore. And in his first PE class, he pitches a perfect game of wiffle ball. The girl of his dreams makes a comment that he should play for the school team, so he sets out to pitch a perfect game for the school. First, of course, he has to make the team in his ploy to win the girl.
Rating: 2/5
Target: 8th-12th grade
Title: It’s his name and arguably his identity. The book begins with the story of how he got his nickname, so it’s fitting — and it is about him when you break it all down.
Main Character(s): Biggie aka Henry, 17 y/o (he/him)
Motifs (not exhaustive): obesity, dating, goals, high school relationships, cliques, bullying, teasing, baseball, perfection, anxiety, identity, athletics, broken families, step fathers, family dynamics, social media
Great for…* (readers): N/A
Great for…* (teachers): N/A
Parental Warning(s): Some cursing, crude reference to female body, sexual reference/innuendo
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*The “Great for” category is not exhaustive and does not intend to neglect the multitude of readers/teachers who could learn from this book in any number of ways.
RATINGS GUIDE
٭ = DNF, would not recommend
٭٭ = would not recommend
٭٭٭ = enjoyable, would recommend
٭٭٭٭ = very good, would recommend
٭٭٭٭٭ = amazing, would definitely recommend
KZ Rochelle 
I enjoyed the vlog review and definitely appreciate your frustration with the self talk about women. I haven’t read Biggie. I probably would have considered it (as I’ve recently read several books focused on overweight youth and I like to compare/contrast). However, I think I’ll pass. My TBR pile is so very high, so I won’t miss out on the damaging discussion about girls/women. Thanks so much, KZ!
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You betcha — That read knocked me into a bit of a girl study. I’d just read Bea is for Blended and am wrapping up What Girls Are Made Of (to be followed by Barbara Dee’s Maybe He Just Likes You).
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