I crawled out of my anti-dystopia hole to read Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Summer Prince. It was long-listed for the National Book Awards, so my modest hope was that I would not loathe it completely just because of its dystopiosity. And I did not loathe it at all! In fact, I enjoyed it.

June is a teenage street artist living in Palmares Tres, a city in futuristic Brazil. After world-wide nuclear fall-out, war, famine, etc, humans have survived in enclosed cities such as Palmares Tres, where elaborate, interactive technology weaves a careful symbiosis between the city and its people. In Palmares Tres, tradition, art, and a ruling matriarchy are revered; all attempts to hold onto the humanity of civilization in the face of such expansive technological possibility. Likewise, citizens are restricted from purchasing technology that interacts too closely with one’s own mind or physical appearance – “body mods” – that other cities are allowed. Palmares Tres is stuck between two different modes of thinking, two different visions of the future, between progress and tradition. Palmeres Tres’s most disturbing tradition is the transferal of royal power by electing a young boy as Summer King; after serving for a year, a figurehead beside the Queen who holds actual power, the King will be executed.  Enki – a boy who loves everyone he meets, who has a gift for subversive performance art – who wields his sexuality when he likes, is elected Summer King – June befriends him. And as is required in any proper dystopia, these two powerless characters begin to upset power structures in Palmares Tres.

I loved how carefully Johnson builds the world of Palmares Tres. With some fantasy and sci-fi, I get the feeling that the author has enjoyed creating a rich and intricate landscape, but because the world is so sprawling, the reader does not get to see very much of it. Palmares Tres is large, but contained – 90% of the story takes place within the walls of the city. You really get to enjoy Johnson’s attention to detail, and Palmares Tres becomes another character. And unlike other dystopias, June’s struggle against society isn’t entirely “us against them.” June wants progressive technology and wants to save Enki, but she also loves her city. She struggles at every step, knowing that any move too drastic may dismantle the safety of her fellow citizens. The pull between fighting the establishment and supporting it made for an interesting plot as well as adding depth to June’s character.

Also, you might notice that these teenagers are *gasp* not white. Or American. I never noticed how completely white-washed most dystopias are, until now. Even more reason not to read any more! Ha.

Some caveats. The plot is a bit complex. The ritual of electing a Summer King – a boy ruler, fated to die – is an integral part of the story’s plot that went a bit under-explained. And while I loved June when she was making her way in the world, creating art and staging political protests with her friends, her family conflicts with her mother seemed wedged in and a little forced. Some have taken issue with the accuracy and appropriateness of Brazilian culture. Not a perfect book, but I would argue that this is a progressive, exceptional dystopia; a standout in a sea of blargh. Once you’re done throwing Allegiant across the room, maybe pick this one up next.

Once upon a time, in a town far, far away…

Alright, never mind. Far Far Away is too weird for me to be too weird about it.

Our protagonist, Jeremy, is a normal, good natured boy. He has an absent mother and a troubled but caring father. Money is nonexistent and it’s up to Jeremy to secure enough cash to save his family’s home – a ramshackle bookstore that does zero business. Unfortunately, Jeremy is a bit of a pariah, an oddball the townsfolk don’t really want to rally around. Because he’s poor. And has a weird dad. Oh, and also he hears voices. Well, one voice. The voice of the ghost of Jakob Grimm – you know, like the Brother Grimm. In fact, Jakob Grimm is the focalizer of Jeremy’s story, his narration an ever-present, almost paternal presence, watching as Jeremy bumbles through various adventures and struggles and mysteries.

On the surface, this is a straightforward Kid Makes Friends and Saves the Day narrative, albeit a well-written one. Jeremy is an affable protagonist and his friend Ginger is energetic without being quirky, which I found surprisingly refreshing. But McNeal does some things here with tone, setting, and language that set Far Far Away apart from the YA pack… or from the pack of any sort of established genre, really. The book has an adult narrator – a verbose narrator from a different era, nonetheless. The language is dense. But the narrator isn’t just any elderly narrator, he’s a Grimm brother. Jakob’s narration takes Jeremy’s mundane troubles and weaves them into a fairytale. One moment, Jeremy’s hometown is any small town in the US; the next it’s a village full of archetypal adults – the witchy teacher, the kindly baker, the callous businessman – who either want to help Jeremy or hurt him. The story is realistic, but it’s not realism. Early on, McNeal draws attention to the grisly nature of many fairy tales – the parts of the stories Disney left out – and as the story unfolds, the atmosphere shifts from benign to ominous, from ominous to threatening.

This is a difficult book to categorize and to describe. The closest comparison I can think of is Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. But if you are a Gaiman fan, a fairytale fan, or are seeking out that YA Not Otherwise Specified, this is one worth checking out.

Hmm… have I talked about my Game of Thrones kick in awhile? No? Well, let’s rectify that. I’m really into Game of Thrones. It’s true. Jessica, the Girl Who Would Not Read Historical Fiction or Fantasies is really into a historical fantasy series. I’ve spent many hours reading and listening to the first three books in the series, a decent enough time to ponder exactly why Westeros turns my crank. Since I am now an exceptionally mature adult, historical fiction is growing on me, and stories about family heritage passing down through generations, too. I don’t consider myself a particular junkie for political intrigue, but Martin cloaks the political power in various mystery plots, so it’s a pleasure (or, actually, a horror), to discover the characters’ secret motives as I read. I also like that Westeros is populated not by glistening princesses and shining knights – archetypes, roaming the seven kingdoms – but instead by characters with human needs and desires (Yes, that was code for ‘I like the sex and boobs and drinking’). And although Martin does write some fabulously insensitive crap about his female characters, I do enjoy the attention to the female experience in what is otherwise a male dominated time and place.

I liked Susann Cokal’s The Kingdom of Little Wounds for the same reasons, although the two may not seem particularly similar. Game of Thrones is an epic political saga spanning continents – The Kingdom of Little Wounds is hyper up-close look inside the royal castle walls of an imaginary Scandinavian castle, where lower class girls earn their living serving princes and queens… and currying royal secrets on the side. After a love affair ended with a public shaming, Ava Bingen is lucky to serve as a queen’s seamstress. But an accident lands Ava in the palace jail, and the only way to preserve her position is to enter a secret-sharing arrangement with a ruthless Duke, which draws Ava deep into the complex and occasionally gruesome secret lives of the royal court members. Although Ava – misguided, striving, and exploited – is the focus of the plot, Cokal’s multiple perspectives also explore the lives of a mute slave girl, an ill princess, and a queen who may be crazy or may be suffering from being Female in a Man’s World. There are a variety of richly imagined female experiences here, all of which weave together to change the course of political events, quietly undermining decisions made by the men in power.

I should also mention that if you thought Game of Thrones was raunchy, debauched, and otherwise graphic, then The Kingdom of Little Wounds will probably turn your stomach. I am generally a sensitive flower when it comes to literary bodily functions – pretty sure Mr. Martin’s characters soil themselves about 100 times more often than realistic or necessary – but Cokal uses the grotesque realities of medicine, daily hygiene, and sickness to play up the ugliness of royal political schemes and call your attention to the weirdness that is relationships between Royals (the randomly, genetically anointed chosen class) and the Servants (who empty their chamber pots and watch them sleep with one another). It’s almost a little like Downton Abbey in that regard.

So this book is basically Game of Thrones meets Downton Abbey!

Um. That was a joke. I should probably accentuate HOW gruesome this book is. It’s quite graphic. I don’t think it’s anything that teens can’t handle, but be warned.

But, really, I do digress. If I am going to make Game of Thrones comparisons, I should also mention that Cokal writes dizzying circles around Martin. The Kingdom of Little Wounds is like a thick chocolate cake of a book; moist and gooey language, rich imagery, best taken in small portions. This is a beautifully written book to the point that it will likely frighten you. Much more than GoT or Downton, reading this book reminded me of the brilliant and intimidating The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by the inimitable M. T. Anderson. I assure you, this is the very highest of complements. I also assure you that The Kingdom of Little Wounds a gorgeous, dense, unflinching story about how history is written, and this review has done it zero justice.

Introverted Cath isn’t the most well-adjusted, outgoing teen in Nebraska, but she knows where she stands. With her mother gone and her father a little flighty, Cath keeps an eye on things at home. Her twin sister Wren is her best friend. And the rest of her life and livelihood is Simon Snow – specifically, her life is Carry On, Simon the epic, episodic work of fan fiction Cath writes for an audience of thousands of Simon fans around the world.

College upsets everything. Cath worries about her father and his empty nest. Wren has a new roommate and a new weekend partying habit, while Cath’s roommate is older and eyes Cath’s Simon Snow posters suspiciously. Cath’s creative writing class isn’t what she hoped it would be, and she either has time for schoolwork or updating Carry On, Simon, but not both. It’s awful. But she has to deal with it. Or drop out. Or fall in love. Or not.

There are a lot of conversations you could have about Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.

– You could talk about whether or not Fangirl is YA, or whether or not any book set in college could be considered YA.

– You could talk about if a character’s Internet-Life can be adequately and richly portrayed with prose, and whether or not Rowell did Cath’s fandom any justice.

– Rowell includes excerpts from Cath’s fan fiction as well as from Simon books themselves – you could talk about fiction within fiction… or more accurately, fiction-based-on-other-fiction all within fiction. Yikes.

– You could talk about “slice of life” fiction. Is it boring? Is it realistic? Is it an artistic form or a mark of authorial laziness? I

– If you are an introverted English major who somehow survived college feeling a little beaten and bruised – come on, I know most of you probably are – then you could talk about how Rowell must have been spying on you in your dorm room, subsisting on the cereal bars stashed in your dresser drawers rather than think of stepping into the school cafeteria.

I could write a blog post on any of those topics, but I believe I would need an entire post for each question. Maybe more. I know this blog has taken some strange turns over the years, but I’m not about to start a Rainbow Rowell Literary Analysis Only blog. Or, A Dramatic Retelling of My College Experience blog for that matter.

However, I would like to propose a theory to you, my few and amazing readers: the more discussion a book raises, the better the book. The more questions you have, the better the book. The more different angles you can come at a book, the better the book.

Obviously, this is not a hard and fast rule, but think about it next time you finish a book. Does the ending wrap itself up in a bow? Can you see where the plot is leading you at every turn? Do you understand every narrative decision the author made? Do you agree with every narrative decision the author made?

It’s nice to read a tidy book, but a tidy book is usually a safe book. Rowell’s narration is pitch perfect and yes, there is a fairly traditional romance plot, but I would argue that this is not a safe book. It’s a book you can critique. A book you can dissect. It’s a book you can love, but makes you think about why you love it.

I should also mention: I loved it. Loved it hard. Didn’t want it to end. It’s been years since I’ve added an author to my Must Read List, but welcome aboard, Ms. Rowell.

This is not a proper book review. A collection of random thoughts. But aren’t most of my book reviews really just collections of thoughts with a few sentences of obligatory summary? Aren’t all book reviews just collections of thoughts with a few sentences of summary? Or, more likely, many sentences of summary and maybe one thought? But I’m not here to tell you what I think about book reviews and how nobody knows how to do it. I am here to talk to you about the latest installment of the Sarah Dessen oeuvre: The Moon and More.

Okay, fine, here’s your obligatory summary:

Colby is a beach town, a tourist town, but Emaline is Colby, born and bred. She lives with her mom, her stepdad, her stepsisters, helps run the family beach rental agency, and has a cute long-term boyfriend. Things were getting better with her birth dad – the tourist who knocked up her mom when she was still a teenager – but things get weird when he backs out on helping pay for her Columbia tuition, and weirder when he shows up in Colby with Emaline’s half brother for an extended stay. And things get weird with the boyfriend when an exuberant film student rents a beach house and catches Emaline’s attention.

Ms. Dessen is a writer of contemporary romance, yes. Her stories are hefty enough to make you feel like you’re not reading a romance, but there’s usually at least a bit of a swoon factor.

The Moon and More has a nice love triangle, but I would argue very little swoon. And on purpose. Trying to avoid spoilers, but let’s just say that Emaline is too pragmatic to really fall head over heels and that’s okay. I like that. Not every YA protagonist needs to be susceptible to romance – especially female ones.

So if there’s not swoon, is this still a romance? Not technically, but it’s still a book about romance. Personally, I think I like books about romance more than romances. There’s always a bit of a conceit in a teen romance that irks me, the conceit that if only these two Love Interests can get together then they will live Happily Ever After. Forever. It’s not spoken, but isn’t that the conceit of all romances?

Yes, folks do marry their high school sweethearts, but not often. And is that really the only love story worth telling? Is every teen romance a How I Met Your Mother (in high school) story? I like romance, yes, and I will swoon when called upon to swoon, but I’m more interested in other kinds of literary romance, which I think Dessen does well with in The Moon and More.

Related, I really liked Theo as almost an anti-romantic-hero. Again, conceptual spoilers ahoy, but most male love interests in teen romances start out a little flawed (or at least the heroine interprets the boy as flawed) and as their romance progresses, those flaws fade away, or the heroine sees them as strengths, or she comes to love them. Theo starts out perfect but by the end of the summer, Emaline sees the major flaws his perfect facade has been hiding. I’m making this sound like Theo is a murderer or a domestic abuser or something. He’s not. He’s just not so swoon-worthy, as most boyfriends are. Their romance takes a different shape.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of YA I gravitate toward, and I will write more about that soon. The Moon and More could be classified as a Last Summer Before College Where Big Decisions Are Made book. I read a lot of these, intentionally or not. I think it’s a popular choice for YA authors for a lot of reasons. It gets their characters out of school. It lets the author write about an almost-adult while still sticking to YA literary conventions. There’s the count-down to fall to ramp up tension and lots of built-in conflicts. It allows for a lot of Pondering of Big Ideas (another Dessen fave).

Dessen has written other Last Summer Before College books (This Lullaby, Along for the Ride) but this one felt different to me. My hypothesis? Most Last Summer Before College books do not actually rely on the narrator going anywhere in particular; it’s the leaving that’s important, not the destination. College represents a vague adulthood, and before the protagonist can be an adult she best attend to some emotional issues otherwise her adulthood will be spoiled. The romance overlay implies that unless the protagonist learns to be vulnerable/open your heart/give people a chance/learn to love, then her future could very well be lonely and loveless. This is an unspoken proposition that makes me uncomfortable, and also, I don’t find it as interesting.

In The Moon and More, Dessen does the Last Summer Before College a little more justice. Emaline’s destination isn’t just a vague place far away – it’s a big part of the plot and ties in with her fraught relationship with her family and her hometown. The book is largely about the difference between moving far and staying close to home, and what that means to your identity. The focus on What’s Next might take focus away from Emaline’s emotional arc (which I think led some readers to call her boring and unrelatable), and definitely reduces the swoon factor, but I like the way the book feels like it’s leaning forwards instead of holding back. I could say something about nostalgia in teen novels here and how this book explores nostalgia while also escaping its claws, but my thoughts, they ramble.

In rough conclusion, I can see where Dessen is going here. The Moon and More might not have the tightest plot, the most likeable characters, or have that swoon that you were hoping for, but I can see where she’s going with her characters and I hope she keeps it up.

 

I have been thinking a lot about realism lately. This might surprise some of you who may have caught onto the fact that I am currently going through a strange and intense fantasy fixation. But I suppose when you start thinking about one side of a coin it’s easy to flip, to start thinking about the other. Or when Jessica starts thinking about genre she can’t stop thinking about genre.

I studied realism – specifically contemporary realism for young adults – for a semester in grad school. The biggest takeaway? Realism is a complex literary genre filled with just as many structural and content-based expectations as the highest of fantasies. Also, realism does not equal reality. Also, also, can anyone even try to define the term “reality?” Go ahead and try. I’ll wait.

I’m not going to try to mash in a semester of hard study into this blog post, but Andrew Smith’s Winger reminded me of what I love so dearly about realism.

It’s the characters – Ryan Dean West, a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school who can’t quite fit in, who is in love with his brilliant, lovely best friend, Annie, who is awash with hormones and aggression and man-feelings. Life is constantly shooting him down for reasons that don’t make any sense. He’s adorable. Don’t tell him I said that.

It’s the settings – the intimate details of the places your protagonist lives that let you feel like you live there too. You could not have paid me to attend a boarding school as a child, but good boarding school books, like Winger, bring a school’s culture and landscape to life in such detail that I wish I had wanted to go.

It’s the voice – the language, rhythm, humor, cadence that bridges the gap between the character and his place, that not only shows you what life looks like for Ryan Dean but what it feels like to live his life.

It’s the way the plot doesn’t really exist – nothing really happens beyond Ryan Dean going to his classes and interacting with his friends and rugby teammates and trying to get into Annie’s pants. That’s not really a plot. But when the voice is good, the characters good, the place is good, then 100 pages go by, 200 pages, and I don’t notice the nothingness of the plot, and I definitely don’t care.

But when the author finally decides to drop down some major plot-points… well, my world is completely rocked and I’m horrified that the book has to end, that I won’t get to see Ryan Dean West through to the rest of his life. Just horrified.

Yeah, I really liked this book. Highly recommend.

I am concerned that I am becoming a reading cynic.

But not that concerned. I think if you like every book you read, then you are probably just really good at picking books to match your tastes. I think it’s okay to acknowledge that although I love books, and YA and children’s books especially, and although I will champion reading whatever you want, whyever you want, whenever you want, whoever you are… there are still books out there that just are not contributing to the field. And it’s okay to talk about why not.

I am off to a bad start, because I am not saying that The Tragedy Paper is one of those books at all! Oh, I start book reviews like this all the time. It’s misleading and awful. I apologize. Stay with me…

It took me three years of grad classes to feel confident enough in my tastes and perceptions to talk about why I didn’t like books, and more importantly, what part of the literature stemmed these negative feelings. It took me about two classes of grad school to see that some people seem to enjoy stampeding into a book with the force of all their pet peeves and then get a look of joyous self-satisfaction when they point out every last nitpicky detail that caused them to hate this book.

Those are the people I don’t want to be.

There is a difference between stating personal preference and forming a critical argument. It’s sometimes not easy to spot in a review, and definitely not easy to prevent when you are reading on your own and writing reviews and otherwise expressing your thoughts about a personal reading experience in a way that will be valuable to other readers.

So. The Tragedy Paper. This is a fairly traditional boarding school story. Think A Separate Peace as your classic touchstone, Looking for Alaska as your contemporary update, and then the rest of the boarding-school-lit field: I’ve read Marianna Baer’s Frost and Jenny Hubbard’s Paper Covers Rock in the past few years, but heck, you could think about Harry Potter, too. All of these books follow a rough pattern: student leaves home, enters a school with a distinct culture – academics, socializing, and other activities are built into the school experience and are often given the heavy weight of ritual or tradition – student is challenged to manage his or her own life without parental control, and then a tragedy occurs, putting it all to the test.

The Tragedy Paper fits neatly into this pattern. Enrolling at Irving School as a second-semester senior, Tim Macbeth flies across the country alone to begin school while his parents are out of the country. A snowstorm grounds him in a Chicago airport and he has a chance encounter with Vanessa, a pretty, popular senior who seems to like him despite the fact that Tim has albinism. When they both arrive at Irving, Tim must adapt to the academic and social culture, manage the health issues that surround his condition without adult oversight, and contend with Vanessa’s boyfriend who is sometimes suspicious and sometimes nice and sometimes just a cog in the bro-y old boy’s club kind of tradition that permeates Irving like any good patriarchal boarding school. (Sorry, blame Frankie)

A tragedy occurs. Of course. It’s called The Tragedy Paper. Laban does ramp up the tension as she moves closer toward the event, and despite the clear fact that something bad is going to happen, I was still completely in the dark of what it would be. From the eyes of Tim, boarding school is a good experience: the traditions give him a sense of belonging, Vanessa makes him feel attractive and confident, and he’s making friends. But Laban injects this sense of maliciousness just beneath the surface. Tim is an albino. An outsider. He is making a play for a popular girl. He will be punished for upsetting the social order. This growing terror feels a little reminiscent of The Chocolate War, and the ending was both shocking and satisfyingly complex.

But is The Tragedy Paper contributing to the field of contemporary YA lit? Is it a good example of a boarding school story? Does it do the genre right?

That I am not sure about, for a reason that is a mix of  my own personal preference, my experience reading contemporary YA realism, and what I think are legitimate literary concerns. I am not sure I can separate them, hence the diatribe above.

My major issue is that I think this book seemed too self-aware. That is best way I can put it, even though books are not conscious entities. What I mean by this is that reading The Tragedy Paper it seems that the author knows she is writing A Boarding School Story that will end in tragedy. It’s called The Tragedy Paper for goodness sake. Everything feels a little too neat. In every other chapter, we are reminded of the wonderful, local, organic food served in the cafeteria, in case we forgot that Irving is a Special Place where kids get to eat Special Food.

The book’s marketing doesn’t help the situation. Laban’s author bio gets a giant picture and a brief bio stating that she wrote her own Tragedy Paper in high school. I am assuming this is supposed to lend credibility and interest to the story – the author knows, so we can trust her depictions – but I interpret that move as a way to bolster the book’s faults. If the plot seems unbelievable at times, the narrators too precocious, the whole book too “self-aware” that’s because Laban knows better than we do and we should just roll with it. The author interview immediately following the book cemented my feelings – I don’t even remember the contents of said interview, but the fact that it is assumed that I give a rip about a debut author’s privileged high school years at a prestigious boarding school feels a little off. Like the story just can’t stand on its own.

And speaking of stories standing on their own, this brings me to my major concern with Laban’s craft: the entire story is written through the eyes of another character – Duncan – who is a senior the year after Tim has graduated. Duncan lives in Tim’s old room, and in the auspice of Irving tradition, Tim leaves Duncan a gift: a stack of CDs, an audio recording of Tim telling his story, his tragedy. It’s a framing device, but it’s a clunky one. Duncan has little personality, he doesn’t do much except race back to his dorm room to listen to more of Tim’s story and hook up with a nice girl named Daisy. This is not Duncan’s story – it’s Tim’s. Again, I feel like a strong story, a stronger writer, could let Tim’s story stand on it’s own.

There could be an argument that Laban expands the literary field by exploring the life experience of teens with albinism. I did find her treatment of Tim’s condition to be nuanced, interesting, and definitely not a story that I’ve heard before in fiction, much less boarding school YA lit. However, Tim’s condition seems to fit so nicely into the pattern of a boarding school story – and is so essential to the tragedy’s ending – that it seems an almost exploitative choice, a physical representation of Tim’s internal other-ness that makes me a little uncomfortable. There were some comments in the author’s interview that reinforced my feelings, which didn’t help.

So what’s the verdict? I would say a good read that satisfies the conditions of the boarding school story and presents some interesting characters and dilemmas, but lacking in significant literary merit, perhaps masked in hyped-up publicity. Or, it’s just a good book and I am a cynic who is overly sensitive to reading about delicious grass-fed burgers and plot-development based on people vomiting (I didn’t mention that because I just can’t, but it happens more than once). But it was definitely thought-provoking, both the actual content of the book and thinking about how it fits into the field afterwards to write this post. I’m interested to see what Laban will try next, either way.

 

Michael Moss’s Sugar Fat Salt: How the Food Giants Hooked Us is an important book. A really important book. Keeping my ranting and ramblings down to a readable word count is going to be a Herculean task, so I will attempt to focus myself as such.

• Part 1: The book as a book
• Part 2: The information contained in said book
• Part 3: Why I wish I had read this book when I was 9 years old, even though it is 500 pages long and not part of the Babysitters Club Series, which means I never would have read it

Part I: The Book as a Book

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a good food-based nonfiction book. Ever since I first encountered Mr. Michael Pollan’s work, my American-Diet-Food-Mind was blown open and I was ready for all sorts of other food-books. Sugar Salt Fat serves the same function as Pollan’s (and others’) work: to help you, the consumer and eater, see food beyond the scope of your own dinner plate, and therefore see how outside cultures, longstanding mythology, and corporate interests are shaping the way you eat.

With a title like Sugar Salt Fat, I expected an examination of how each of these three ingredients ravage your body and contribute to the obesity epidemic and basically are ruining America. Not the case. Moss’s work is all business – the business of making and marketing processed foods, that is – and this book explores on how sugar, salt and fat affect the bottom line of giant food manufacturers like General Mills, Kraft, Coke, and many others. It’s a corporate expose, not a nutrition manual.

Moss’s book is hefty, but the chapters are short, the prose readable, and the stories intriguing. Each chapter reads like an article – complete within itself – but the secrets of corporate food culture were so alluring that I couldn’t put it down.

 

Part II: The Information Contained in Said Book

Like I said, this is a really important book – another food manifesto for the 21st century that I hope many, many people read.

This is going to be poorly worded, but Moss’s thesis is this:

You, the consumer, the every day eater, have been convinced that processed food – anything in a crinkly plastic bag and a list of ingredients longer than 1 – is food. But it’s probably not. Once these companies tamper with these foods to A) make them last on the shelf without disgusting you B) make them completely irresistible to the American palate, these foods have so much sugar, fat, and salt, that your body doesn’t know what to do with them anymore. These added ingredients are making you sick.

The second half of the thesis:

These giant food corporations are in such heavy competition for the inherently limited amount of “shelf space” and “stomach share” available, they have zero qualms about adding more, more, and more of these ingredients in order to make their products more irresistible than the junk of their competitors.

So there’s a lie – that the processed food you eat every day is good for your body – and then corporate disregard for how their main business strategy contributes directly to obesity and illness.

Mind. Blown.

Don’t worry, there are plenty of little tidbits I’m not revealing here – the habits of food company CEOs, how Dr. Pepper became Dr. Pepper, why the fad school-lunch du jour of my elementary years – the Lunchable – was a significant “culinary” and marketing achievement for shoving processed foods down the throats of children…

I’m not bitter, I promise.

Part III: Why I Wish I’d Read This Book When I was 9-Years-Old

Oh wait, yes I am. I am bitter because I was a normal-sized little girl when I was a nine year old, a ten year old. I was taller than almost everyone in my class, though, so when we all had to stand on a scale in the nurse’s office in front of our classmates, I knew that I weighed more than almost everyone in my class. Certainly all the girls.

That wasn’t good knowledge to have as a little girl, but that’s not why I’m bitter. I’m bitter because around that same time, I remember a Saturday morning when I first felt shame about food. A box of Dunkin’ Donuts on the table, and I knew it was okay to eat 2 donuts. But the third donut, I probably shouldn’t have eaten. At the third donut I started making promises to myself, that I would never eat more than two again, that I shouldn’t have any snacks for the rest of the day, that I would maybe just stop eating donuts forever.

With the fourth donut came the self loathing. It was an awful feeling, to keep eating after I’d decided with my little-girl brain that I’d already crossed the line. And although I am not pinning my personal issues those box of fateful donuts, it was, in part, an awful feeling because these donuts were so delicious that I couldn’t say no. I wasn’t strong enough to resist. Good girls had more willpower – I must not be good.

It pisses me off to know that some middle aged men are sitting in laboratories, chemically engineering donuts to hit that “bliss point,” the point where your tastebuds take over, where you can’t say no – designing foods so insidiously so little girls can have breakfast and when they are done hate themselves and their bodies for years and years and years. I can’t help but wonder what effect a childhood grown on whole, unprocessed foods might have on eating disorders, food issues, the general female-body condition.

So read this book and then go to the market, cook yourself some dinner, give your kid a carrot, or whatever else you can do to step outside of the Corporate Food Cycle. If you don’t have time to read this book, read this article – it hits a lot of the high points. Please and thanks.