All of Me: When A Summer Quest For Weight Loss Becomes A Pathway For Hard Truths

Doing a story that tackles fat-shaming and resulting weight loss is iffy. It can either imply that people with larger sizes either don’t deserve love— that is complete nonsense, by the way — or need to lose weight to grow as people. Both of these are utter nonsense. It’s why I appreciate that All of Me torpedoes that to the ground. Sometimes weight loss is good for your esteem, but it’s not a blunt cookie-cutter solution. Food is not the enemy and neither is an unappreciated body type.

Mr. Baron, I am begging you not to do anything racist or tasteless over the next few weeks after I post this review. You seem like a nice guy and I want it to stay that way. All of Me was a good book and I think that surely people will not say hateful stuff over zoom during YA conferences regarding it. I want this praise to carry on and shimmer in joy.

All Of Me by Chris Baron

In verse, we get the story of a boy trying to find out who and what he is. Ari spends his time trying to avoid bullies and eats to deal with stress. His family has a habit of moving to support his mother’s artistic career. At a new place, he starts designing games with a friend named Pick and molds trolls out of clay. Cryptids are one of his passions, and he dreams one day of being a…