Deborah Blumenthal Fat Camp

Fat Camp

Deborah Blumenthal

NAL, Jun 2006, $9.99

ISBN: 0451218655

Overweight with no chance of wearing a bikini or having a boyfriend, Cam Phillips has been pudgy since birth. Now her perfectly fit parents decide that Cam needs help with her obesity problem so she sends her teenage daughter to summer camp, but not the type most people are familiar with. Instead, Camp Calliope is FAT CAMP, a kind of boot camp for the overweight to learn the importance of good nutrition in classes (summer school at camp how mortifying) and to eat small portions of food (so tiny a mouse would die from starvation).

While her best friend Evie goes to fun camp, depressed Cam finds herself sharing a dorm with girls her age and built like her discussing the Fs, food and fat. Cam's morale picks up when she falls in love with Jesse, who likes her a lot; though he does not push her, Cam begins to lose weight, but when she returns to Manhattan in the fall will she be able to keep it off with Ray's Pizza beckoning her to dine.

This teen chick lit is a delightful tale because of the lead protagonist struggling with low self esteem that in part is because she has a weight problem. Cam is a terrific character as she fails to adjust to FAT CAMP until she meets Jesse. Though somewhat as expected, the story line also makes a case that keeping the weight off once lost is as difficult or more so because the environment must change too as lifestyle alterations is critical; it takes a family to keep off the weight. This is a wonderful teenage character study.

Harriet Klausner