ya book blog post 3/15/15

Ya Book Blog Post 3/15/15

            In the book “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things” by Carolyn Macker, the overweight, Virginia Shreves goes through many problems. Towards the end, she learns to stay strong, notices many horrible things about her family members, and gains confidence. Virginia goes through many changes.

            One change Virginia goes through is she learns to stay strong. Virginia goes on a diet to make her parents proud, which is something she didn’t even want to do in the first place. Food was like a friend to her when she was having hard times, which was a lot. For her to give it up like that just to impress people, was very strong of her. Another reason Virginia is strong is because when her brother, Byron, who she looks up to as a role model called her fat, she wanted to cut herself, but she didn’t. This is strong because she had such an easy opportunity to. Also, she had been going through a very hard time, and it was brave of her to not cut herself.

            Another change Virginia goes through is she notices many horrible things about her family members. For example, she notices that her brother is an awful person, not only because she raped an innocent girl, and didn’t feel bad, but because he is even mean to her. He knows that that’s what she hates most about herself. That was really the moment she noticed that her brother is not only a cruel brother, but a cruel person in general. She also notices a bad trait about her father. That he only thinks skinny women can be beautiful. He doesn’t have to think everyone is beautiful, but to say everyone who is fat is ugly, is really rude and mean. This fact really hits Virginia when she proudly tells her father she is going on a diet, and he says “You’ve got a pretty face. Just think of how much pretty you would be if you were skinny” this shows how her own dad thinks that she’s ugly, just because she’s fat.

            Finally, Virginia goes through a huge change by gaining confidence in herself. One way she does this, is her best friend (and only friend) moved to Washington from New York in the beginning of the year. For Thanksgiving, her best friend, Shannon invites her to Washington over the break. Virginia asks her mother if she can go, but her mother says no, meanwhile, her brother is going to Paris over the break, and that’s a “completely different story” since her mother doesn’t let her go to Washington, she decides to go to a ticket seller herself, and use her savings account to buy her own non-refundable ticket to Washington. This took a lot of courage, because that was her own, hard earned money that she spent half of, and if her parents said no, it would have gone to waste. But, Virginia felt happy, because it gave her a sense of power, like she could do things on her own. Another way Virginia gains confidence is when she is in Washington, she gets an eyebrow piercing. This is going completely against her parents. Also, as Virginia says in the book, she doesn’t like anything drawing attention to her face because she thinks it is ugly. Doing this made her more self-assured with her face. Also, many people notice and compliment her new piercing, which boosts her self-esteem even more.

            Virginia goes through many changes throughout the book, such as realizing her brother is a bad person, her father is demining to women, and she gains confidence. Noticing these kinds can really  make a person’s life turn upside down, like Virginia Shreves’ life did.