YA Review: The Summer of Jordi Perez

The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding

Published: April 3rd, 2018 by Sky Pony Press
Genre: Contemporary YA
Binding: eARC
Page Count: Goodreads says 224.
Part of a series? I don't believe so.
Got via: Edelweiss.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Abby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick in other people's lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby has stayed focused on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a prized internship at her favorite local boutique, she’s thrilled to take her first step into her dream career. She doesn't expect to fall for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Abby knows it's a big no-no to fall for a colleague. She also knows that Jordi documents her whole life in photographs, while Abby would prefer to stay behind the scenes.

Then again, nothing is going as expected this summer. She's competing against the girl she's kissing to win a paid job at the boutique. She's somehow managed to befriend Jax, a lacrosse-playing bro type who needs help in a project that involves eating burgers across L.A.'s eastside. Suddenly, she doesn't feel like a sidekick. Is it possible Abby's finally in her own story?

But when Jordi's photography puts Abby in the spotlight, it feels like a betrayal, rather than a starring role. Can Abby find a way to reconcile her positive yet private sense of self with the image that other people have of her?

Review: If you follow me on twitter, you already know how much I loved this. Long story short, the fat representation is great and positive without ignoring the reality of fat oppression, the platonic friendships are wonderful, the humour is great, and the romance is adorable. So basically, I'm done this review now right? No, I'm kidding, I'm going to write a full review. But that is a pretty good summary of my overall thoughts, so how about we jump right into specifics?

Plot Talk: Contemporary books always sound so bad when I describe their plots. Just me, other people are good at it. This is much more of a character driven book, and a lot of the conflict is both about Jordi and Abby's relationship, and Abby's own personal growth. It's a quiet type of plot, not a boring one. I went out in the middle of reading this, and I was sitting in the restaurant waiting for my food (amusingly, a burger), and I was like, "I could have brought my kindle and been reading."

Also, since I don't really have another place to put this, points for the setting here as well. A lot of the time in a book with a fat MC, I ask why there aren't other fat people besides the MC. In this case... the MC lives in LA. I can totally understand why she doesn't see as many other fat people in her day to day life. I mean, I'm pretty sure fat people do exist in LA, but, you know. LA. It kinda makes sense that thin people would be even more overwhelming than usual.

Characters: The characters really shine in this. Great characters really are an incredible strength of the author. I absolutely adored Abby's voice. She's got so much personality, and I adored it. I loved the fact that she has several pierces of clothing with fruit patterns. She's a giant nerd sometimes, and so freaking adorable. I also thought that as a fat character, she's wonderful. I like how she's very firm about "fat" not being an insult, and that indeed being what she is. She's confident in her body, and isn't ashamed of being fat, but she isn't immune to the oppression of fat people.

Some things that Abby says ring so, so true. Like thin people always guessing your size way smaller than it is like that's more polite or just out of cluelessness about larger sizes, and how it still bugs Abby but she wishes it didn't because she doesn't think anything is wrong with the size of her body. Her arc is about caring what people see when they see her, and starting to care less about those people, because, truly, they don't matter, and her body isn't "too big" for anything. It's honestly wonderful.

And every other character shines, too. Jordi is like the lesbian version of the YA Bad BoyTM, always wearing black and all artsy and has a secret dark past that isn't actually as dark as it seems. Her and Abby are literally the pink one and the goth one. Abby even has pink hair. Jordi is also Mexican-American, and there's some time spent talking about her family and her dad especially really wanting their family to connect with their family's roots through food, and it's really nice, I think. (Take me with a grain of salt here obviously, because white.)

I also really appreciated the wonderful friendships in this. Abby's best friend has a new boyfriend, and they're kind of relearning their friendship as dating becomes a thing for both of them, but it doesn't do the "my friend got a boyfriend and completely abandoned me" plot. Their friendship is still incredibly important to each of them, but their lives are changing a bit, and they're learning how to deal with that change. Overall, Abby's friends are wonderfully supportive of her, no matter what it is they're being supportive of. It's adorable and I loved it.

Along with that, I cannot write this review without mentioning Jax. That dude cracks me up. He's also an amazing example of non-toxic masculinity. He's a complete and total dudebro who, the first time we meet him, is kind of hitting on Abby a little bit. She turns him down and he stops doing that and holds absolutely no hard feelings, is just as interested in being her friend, and is basically ready to be her wingman to get her a girlfriend. My absolute favourite line is when Abby asks him why he's so afraid of "girl feelings", and he replies that he's a feminist, and he's equally afraid of all feelings.

Platonic boy/girl friendships for the absolute win.

PG-13 stuff: There's some cursing, a little bit of implied sexual content, but nothing that I think would be overwhelming for a younger YA reader, or anything. Pretty typical stuff for YA. The fatmisia discussed could be a little intense, but it's really balanced by almost no one in Abby's life actually being that way to her.

The one expection to this is her mother. This might go into a bit of a spoiler territory, so you can skip this part, but it's important to talk about. Abby's mother runs a health food company, and both her and the company are kind of peak diet culture. Her mother thinks that Abby's life would be easier if she wasn't fat (or gay) and, sure, that's probably true, but those are both probably about equally as changeable. She also is convinced Abby's going to be proven unhealthy when she goes to the doctor, and that her diet plan will magically make Abby lose weight (despite the fact that Abby already eats only her food at home and often for lunch at work). (Spoiler, it wouldn't, so go Abby for refusing to be a before.) Even though her mom (kinda) turns around, that could be upsetting for readers. I applaud the author for the depiction, though, personally. It's very true to life.

Cons, complaints, bad stuff, etc.: I do have a couple small things. Some stuff is pretty healthist. Abby's mom, obviously, although she's not to meant to be seen as right, but the book does lean towards a "it's okay to be fat as long as you're happy and healthy". It's okay to also be fat and unhealthy and unhappy. Health is not a moral obligation. It'd be nice if that had been brought up, especially as the book lacks any kind of disability rep.

It also would have been nice to have other fat characters, even though I ultimately understand why there might not be, especially ones who are larger than Abby. (Abby is specifically not the largest size that the store carries, and in her words, those sizes tend to run small, and, in my experience, tend to not carry larger than a US24. So while her size is never named, you can kind of figure it out from context clues. There's also not talk of her not fitting into chairs, or booths, or seatbelts not fitting, or other things that fat people larger than that have to deal with.)

I also found some things a tiny bit aromisic. Ace people aren't really mentioned as a possibility (or pan people, or trans peeps really), and there's a moment where the idea of not having romantic love in your life is kind of dismissed as "not a thing". It's a bit meh in an otherwise very good book.

Also, can we not name drop Tess Holliday in YA books as a good person/role model? Just... please no.

Cover comments: I freaking love the cover. It actually has things that are in the book, like Abby's pink hair and burgers! I do kind of wish Abby was a bit more visibily fat (double chin, anyone?) as book covers seriously don't use enough actually fat models, but it also kind of fits that she doesn't like pictures of herself. It's cute as all heck, though.

Conclusion: Why do my complain-y sections always look so long when I actually liked a book? Seriously, I honestly loved this. It's got such a sweet romance, great friendships, diverse characters, and some of the most realistic fat representation. I read part of a book recently that seemed to be trying to do everything this book did, and failed miserably, and this book was like a breath of fresh air after reading just a third of that book. The word fat is never treated as a dirty word. BEING fat is never, ever treated as a bad thing. We need a ton more of that in YA, especially intersectional characters who are fat and queer, or POC, or disabled, etc. I had such a good time reading this. It's a perfect summer book, and I would definitely recommend it. Half a rose off for some of the things I mentioned, but this one is still getting four out of five roses from me.



Other notes:

- Random, but for some reason my brain mixed this up with The Education of Margot Sanchez. I guess they both have an MC who cares about fashion (for one reason or another) and take place over the summer? Brains are weird, though.

- I am aware there is some stuff going down with Sky Pony Press, but I'm not educated enough on the specifics to speak about it, and I still want to support this book.

- Are internships at stores a thing in the US? I had never heard of that before. We have work experience programs, but those are done through the high school and the kids get class credit for them or whatever.

- This is not specifically related to the book, so I'm not going to include it in the review proper, but I wish there was more fat rep of characters, especially fat girls, who aren't into fashion, and not because they don't like their body. Like Molly in Upside of Unrequited, this seems to be quite common, and while it's not inherantly bad, it shouldn't be everything there is.

Fat girls are expected to perform a higher degree of feminity than thin girls, but not all of us are interested in wearing dresses and super cute outfits. Some of us are happier in casual outfits, or don't care at all, or can't FIND clothing in our sizes that reflects how we'd actually want to dress but non-basic items aren't avalable. Some fat girls are disabled and can't put that many spoons towards clothing choices. Some fat people aren't girls at all. We severely lack representation of people who aren't fashionable white, smaller-fat girls. Who are mostly straight.

Okay, done rant. Still true, but I'm done ranting.

Peace and cookies,
Laina