Judy Lohden is your above-average sixteen-year-old: sarcastic and vulnerable, talented and uncertain, full of big dreams for a big future. With a singing voice that can shake an auditorium, she should be the star of Darcy Arts Academy, the local performing arts high school. So why is a girl this promising hiding out in a seedy motel room on the edge of town?
The fact that the national media is on her trail after a controversy that might bring down the whole school could have something to do with it. And that scandal has something—but not everything—to do with the fact that Judy is three feet nine inches tall.
Rachel DeWoskin remembers everything about high school: the auditions (painful), the parents (hovering), the dissection projects (compelling), the friends (outcasts), the boys (crushable), and the girls (complicated), and she lays it all out with a wit and wistfulness that is half Holden Caulfield, half Lee Fiora, Prep’s ironic heroine. Big Girl Small is a scathingly funny and moving book about dreams and reality, at once light on its feet and unwaveringly serious.
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"I seem to gravitate to novels in which the main character(s) has a physical deformity of some kind: *A Prayer for Owen Meany* (very short stature, odd voice); *Stones From the River* (dwarf); *The Girls* (conjoined twins); and now *Big Girl Small* (Little Person). Maybe it's because these characters have been developed with such skill, and with such depth, and each have been portrayed with such unique perspectives on life. In *Big Girl Small*, Judy Lohden is a teenage Little Person who has the type of dwarfism that allows for a still-proportionate body, without the enlarged head. She describes herself as "cute", with a pretty good body, and has been blessed with an amazing singing voice. Her parents have allowed her, because of this voice, to enroll into a competitive performing arts academy. Judy has all of the typical teenage "new kid in school" misgivings, but eventually finds a group of friends and eventually develops a major crush on the hottest guy in school. What I loved about this novel is that Judy pays only cursory attention to her Little Person status and gives herself every opportunity for success and happiness as any other high school kid. The crush on Jeff, then, is just another normal high school experience. A normal high school experience, that is, until Judy's dream comes true and Jeff begins to pay attention to her in a romantic way. What happens to Judy as her relationship with Jeff develops and morphs into something horrible-yet-not-all-that-unrealistic becomes the crux of the novel. Judy tells her story from the aftermath of the major incident in the novel and recounts the events leading up to it. I loved Judy's voice, and loved the fabulously fresh character she is. I also liked the adults in the novel (a rarity for me in novels in which teenagers are the lead characters), and especially loved DeWoskin's absolutely HILARIOUS writing style. I didn't love the ending, but it would have been a tough one to stick with a perfect 10.0. I highly recommend *Big Girl Small* to any and all who enjoy a unique character with a great, big voice!"
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Alicia (4 out of 5 stars)