Book review: Picture Me by Lori Weber

When a well-meaning English teacher has overweight student Krista read aloud a poem about body image titled "Barbie Doll" in class, she ignites a simmering bullying event based on Krista's appearance. Krista's best friend, and witness to the event, Tessa, is suspended for fighting to defend her friend. The girl who bullies Krista seems unaffected by the incident at school and more concerned with what an older guy thinks of her. But as the three characters' paths intersect, their inner lives are revealed. Each emerges as a much more complicated individual than their simple bully, target, and witness labels.

Received as a free ARC from NetGalley.

Okay.  So.  This book was a huge disappointment for me.  The premise is definitely an interesting one, and it’s relevant to what’s going on in schools now.  The fact that the author decided to have it from the bully’s point of view could’ve been great.  Not everything is black and white, after all, and so being able to look into the mind of the person who was being so horrible was something I looked forward to, just to see how the author would make us sympathize with Chelsea.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work.  The only point of view I found myself enjoying in this book was Tessa’s.  She’s Krista’s best friend, Krista being the one who’s bullied.  Tessa is the only one who was at all tolerable in the book.  Krista’s character development is rushed and unbelievable (going from completely confident in herself to starving herself within a week?).  Chelsea’s story is even worse.  We’re supposed to believe that her home life is horrible, that her mother doesn’t care about her at all, but what we see is the exact opposite.  The worst part of her life is that she doesn’t have a father and her family is lower-middleclass, I think.  They can’t really afford a lot of nice clothes or fancy food or whatever, but Chelsea makes it even harder for herself by being an ungrateful brat who seems to think she deserves to live the same type of life as Paris Hilton and all those types of people.

There’s also the problem that the author attempts to have side stories, mainly Tessa’s family issues and Chelsea with that older guy (as a warning, there are implications of violence and even rape in Chelsea’s side story).  But well… they don’t fit at all.  And nothing is resolved.  At all.  The ending just stops.

So yeah, this book isn’t that great.  Not one I’d recommend even as a quick read, which it thankfully is.  I finished it in maybe four hours, and that was with taking breaks.