Big Boned

- Meg Cabot -

Definitely my favorite of the three (so far) Heather Wells books.

Now, having read all three, there is clear character development and growth for Heather, so some of the things that really irritated me in the first book are, in retrospect, part of her journey and things she grows out of over the course of the series.

This books was all about Heather realizing what she really wanted from her life and career, ie: not to write shitty children's songs just for the sake of it, enjoying what she is doing at Death Dorm, not being afraid to speak up for herself and speak her mind a bit more.

That being said: she is still a little too the annoying side when it comes to lusting/longing after Connor. I think part of the reason their eventual get together moment fell a little flat for me was because of the first person structure of the narrative. Because it's all from Heather's pov, we never really get to see Connor's feelings or thoughts about her until he states them out loud. There are hints of course, but because Heather is clueless about how he feels, so is the reader and so we are left to just rely on the formula for how these type of stories generally work to know that they will ultimately end up together.

There was even an attempt to suggest that Connor and Heather were not going to end up together, with the character of Tad - the perfect boyfriend, supposedly. But since, after a hilarious jogging scene at the beginning, he mostly disappears from the action, it's hard to take him seriously as a character or a love interest for Heather.

Meg Cabot does a much better job of making the secondary friend characters more well rounded and part of the story - Magda, Pete, Tom, Patti, Frank, even the ex-boyfriend, Jordan, all seem more realistic and important to both the story and Heather than Tad ever does.

Definitely hope there are more books in this series, and will be really interested to see if the characters are developed so gradually yet clearly over the course of some of Cabot's other series. Have just started "Queen of Babble".