Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher.

Here's another excellent story by Chris Crutcher. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes was the other result of my shopping trip to Barnes and Noble, and I'm not going to lie: I was not disappointed. The novel deals with the same type of issues as Whale Talk.

However, it goes into great depth on the issue of child abuse. The novel follows Eric Calhoune, the best friend of Sarah Byrnes, for whom the book was named. Sarah Byrnes has scars all over her face from where she was burnt by her father as a child. And yes she realizes her name has a twist of irony to it. Anyway, the book begins with Eric visiting Sarah in the hospital. Apparently one day, in the middle of class, Sarah just stops talking. Everybody is super concerned because they normally can't go five seconds without hearing Sarah say some kind of smart-alec remark.

The book then proceeds to delve into the whole history between Sarah and Eric. Eric is a chubby kid, and always has been, so Sarah and he became friends because they had the common bond of being outcasts. Everybody shunned them because of their looks. However, as time goes on, Eric becomes more popular because he joins the swim team. Don't think of Eric as a pushover; he's not. Well, at least he's not most of the time. Multiple times in the book he stands up to the devil himself a.k.a. Virgil Byrnes, Sarah's dad. The novel really heats up when Sarah leaves the hospital. Like many of Crutcher's books, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes gives the reader a glimpse of what it is like to live in the imperfect world we live in. He allows the reader to see a different side of life, a side most of us hopefully never see.

-Drew