Review Detail

Simone is "the weird fat girl" in the wake of her mother's death (at her birth), her father's workaholicism and shiny new girlfriend, and her general inability to deal with the intricacies of high school life. She has retreated behind her hair, her extra large vintage concert t shirts and copious amounts of snack foods. When her father's girlfriend (who has an odd obsession with mirrors and red lipstick, as well as feeding Simone apples even though she's deathly allergic) takes all of her snack stash and Simone tries to get into a pottery class but ends up in Zumba classes instead, Simone starts losing weight and feeling a little better about herself. When she has to spend the summer with her college aged brother and his six roommates, she starts to become more interested in dressing well and in dating a boy from her school, Jason, whose father is a famous film maker and whose mother is in her Zumba class. Is he really the boy for her? And will Simone's transformation stick?