Gitty Daneshvari

I’m not going to mention how long this has been on the TBR pile. I’m not. It’s kind of embarrassing. Let’s just say that I’ve been meaning to read this for a long time.

The back cover of the book recommended it to fans of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, so I was a little bit wary – I really did not like A Series of Unfortunate Events, so wasn’t sure whether I would actually enjoy this one either. Thankfully, it was such an utterly adorable book that I worried show more all for naught!

There’s such a colourful bunch of characters here, from the quirky headmistress (who used to be a beauty queen) to her gambling lawyer, to the four children themselves, that it would have been hard not to like at least one character in this book. They’re all so amusing in their own little (or not-so-little) neurotic ways.

The children are all so different, and thrown into a dangerous situation where they have to learn to work together in order to save the day – stories like these are always such fun because the potential for so much conflict that you always want to cheer the characters on when they finally realize they need to put aside their differences in order to work towards a common goal.

School of Fear was extremely well paced too – there wasn’t a moment when I was wondering when we would get to something exciting. Right from the beginning, there’s so much to see and learn… whether about the characters, or the school, or how Mrs. Wellington (the headmistress) planned on curing the main characters of their fears when all she seemed to do was teach them how to be prepared for a beauty pageant.

I know I have mentioned her previously, but really, the headmistress was the highlight of this book for me. I absolutely adored everything about her! From the moment she first graced us with her presence, dressed like a 1950′s beauty pageant queen who lost her hair (and potentially her sanity) long ago. I mean, who else would have a whole room in her school dedicated to keeping really gross smelling things all catalogued in jars?

The Bottom Line
Very cute! I’m going to need to read the rest of the School of Fears book, and would highly recommend to fans of slightly bizarre middle-grade books. show less

(audio on playaway) Children's fiction (read aloud for 3rd grade and up / read alone for 4th-6th). The mp3 player actually malfunctioned around Ch. 27, so I never did find out how exactly the children defeated the ugly lawyer in purple, saved Macaroni the bulldog, and redeemed Abernathy, but I think we can safely presume that all of that happened, AND they conquered their fears. But I did enjoy this and I can see why/how it would be a successful series. Recommended for kids who enjoy the show more Mysterious Benedict Society and the Lemony Snicket series, and you might be able to convince the kids who like Goosebumps and maybe even the kids who like Wimpy Kid to give it a try as well. show less

For the first hundred pages of the book, Anna is fat and self-loathing. She is teased and shunned everywhere she goes, and writes hateful diary entries to herself in a book called Dear Fatty. When she goes to New York City to jump-start her life, she meets the Fairy Godmother she'd been searching for all those years. Janice, a caterer, hires Anna and puts her to work walking all over New York to gather ingredients. Janice also starts Anna on healthy eating and water, plus buys her clothes so show more she'll feel better about herself in the meantime.

Janice's plan works and Anna gets skinny. She is still just as insecure though, and it shows. When she is first asked out by Ben, she believes it's either a joke or a pity date. After some time together, she still cannot believe he actually likes her. Ben is the epitome of hotness, so much so that everywhere he goes, both women and men fall all over him. He loves the attention so he smiles back, which freaks Anna out to no end. Convinced he will leave her for someone more attractive, Anna decides to sabotage him so women will not find him as handsome.

She then starts doing the most horrid things to the poor guy, focusing on ruining his hair, clothes, and weight. As her plan finally starts to come to fruition, that's when the book gets funny: the way Ben reacts to the secret manipulation. It's hilarious. On one end, I can understand why Anna would be worried: Ben flirts with everyone, he tried to feel her up while watching a tv special about the now grown & legal Olsen twins from Full House, and wanted to watch a movie just because the actress in it, Jessica Biel, is hot. I'd probably get jealous too. I just don't think I'd handle it the way she did.

I know where Anna was coming from, I've yo-yo'ed weight-wise my entire adult life. I've hated my body and been incredibly insecure with horrible self esteem. Even so, I never once thought to write mean things to myself in a derogatory journal or be so self-destructive or selfish. I have a hard time relating to Anna or liking her because of her actions, but I can understand them, and this book is raw, honest, and screwed up ... in a way that still manages to be very entertaining. In the end, I came to respect Anna, and to really like this book. show less

The Makedown is a very interesting book and definitely more than chick lit. I could relate to it in some ways, I could definitely weigh less than I do and I love junk food. I was very interested to see Anna's transformation from a totally socially awkward over-eater to a thin more confident women.

Before I started reading I was unsure where the book would start. Would it start right at the Makedown and hint to the past and Anna's transformation or start before that? Thankfully it starts when show more Anna is very young and gives snippets of her life until she graduates from college and then the story settles down and proceeds from there. So by the time the actual makedown starts we have a real sense of Anna and her hopes and fears.

I think my favorite part of the book was right up until she started dating her Mr. Wonderful, Ben (I couldn't really see his appeal beyond his physical attractiveness). Then I felt like she became a totally different person (which sometimes does happen to people) and not in a really good way. I admit it was pretty funny to read about how she tried to prevent her boyfriend from flirting and being flirted with but after awhile it did get kind of sad, though Anna did realize her mistake and tried to fix it.

Her banter and relationship with her FG (Fairy Godmother) was great. I was really interested to see how she was going to kick her junk food addiction and lose all her extra weight, some pretty drastic measures had to be taken for it to happen. I thought the book could have done without the Epilogue but besides that I thought it ended how it should have.

I would definitely suggest this book, it's funny, hopeful and a bit out of the ordinary! show less