I don’t really know what drew me to choose this book from Amazon – I know that it was free to read, but I think as usual it was probably the cover. ‘Don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ sounds like an admirable thing to say, but when there’s hundreds of thousands of books to choose from on Amazon, it’s kind of impossible not to.

I binged this book in one sitting, it was compulsive reading and impossible to put down (unputdownable(?) – I think that should definitely be a word, right?).

Mercy is a big girl. She’s from a big family. She can’t remember a time she wasn’t fat, and she is tormented mercilessly for it. Unfortunately that torment is not just from people at school or people in the street – it comes from her own family too. Everyone calls her ‘Sugar’ – a cruel nickname bestowed on her by her own mother of all people. Despite the fact that her mother is so big that she can no longer leave her own bed and relies on Sugar for every element of her care.

Sugar is miserable, and that misery makes her turn to food again and again and again. For the comfort that she’s not getting from those people who should be there for her.

So when someone bumps into Sugar for the umpteenth time in the school cafeteria and causes her to drop her lunch all over the floor, she’s had enough. But it turns out that the boy who ran into her isn’t the same as the rest. Even (his father wanted to call him Evan but couldn’t spell), turns out to be just what Sugar needs to escape from the crushing weight of her family.

As Sugar and Even get closer, we can literally feel the weight falling off Sugar’s shoulders as her heart becomes lighter and filled with small bits of joy. But we also feel Sugar’s insecurities creeping back time after time. Every time she returns to her family home you can feel her regressing back to her old ways.

I’m going to stop my plot review right there, as I don’t want to give away any spoilers to this fantastic book. Let’s just say that I had no idea what was coming, and when it happened it broke my heart.

I cried so many times during this book. Seeing so much of myself in Sugar (but thankfully none of my family in hers). I could empathise totally with her feelings and her lack of self-worth. The attempts to drown out the sting of the comments from people who don’t know her. Feeling like no-one will ever get to know the great person inside you because they can’t get past the way you look on the outside.

I loved this book. Despite feeling completely broken at the end, I loved it.