I am not sure how to feel about this book.

I started my Dessen adventures with Just Listen, which I loved. I then proceeded to read Dessen’s other stories out of order; going back to her older work. I found that the farther back I went the heavier the More You Know hand weighed down on my shoulders. The books aren’t terrible (has she ever written a bad book?) but they’re lacking a spark that I found in Just Listen and The Truth About Forever. There’s a depth that’s missing from her earlier work that her more recent work has in spades. Even Lock and Key had it and I didn’t particularly care for that story; it was trying too hard. There are layers to Dessen’s later work that feel more true to life. It wasn’t a bunch of episodic events that related to each other enough to tangle them together into a cohesive story. I don’t feel that Dessen is pulling archetypes and standard high school scenarios out any longer. She’s graduated beyond the building blocks and now she’s into Tinker Toys, to abuse a metaphor. You can build cooler stuff that people can recognize as yours right off the bat.

I went into the story annoyed at the tone. I worked this out with KJ, who eventually pinned my problems with the opening sequence where Kiki Sparks is sending Colie away to stay with her eccentric sister Mira while she tours around Europe promoting her fitness line. She advises Colie to eat the pre-planned meals she’s sending along because it would be a shame to gain all that weight she lost back.

What’s the biggest shame is that line of dialogue. Awesome: Colie’s mother is a weight-obsessed jerk! It set the tone for the entire story in the gutter for me. Right off the bat Colie and her mother are characterized by their weight and defined by how they live their lives around it to escape the “fat years” as if being fat is equal to being miserable and lonely and avoided, period, no way around it. I know it’s hard to find books that don’t treat fat girls and women like they’re some sort of alien from the planet Lard, but I swear it’s possible. Keeping the Moon isn’t actively hostile to heavy characters, but it wasn’t too kind, either. Colie was the fat girl with no friends and no self-esteem because she was fat. Those negative feelings followed her as she lost the weight, too—true enough to life, but I’m still bothered. Being fat means you don’t have self-esteem? Being fat means you learn to hide behind the rolls and the thick thighs? Being fat means you’ll only gain the confidence you need once your mother finds her religion in fitness and molds you to where you’re “supposed to” be?

I would have enjoyed this book more had Colie not lost the weight, truth be told. I’m tired of the fat-girl-becomes-a-swan-and-is-reborn! story. I want stories where the fat girl doesn’t have to change her exterior. I want stories where there’s more focus on being healthy and making better choices instead of “I was a fat kid and lost 45 pounds!”. These stupid numbers. Who cares about them. Being heavy doesn’t mean unhealthy or weird or freakish and this book aligns them so often, especially in Mira’s case, that I just don’t know how to feel. Mira’s part in this novel: the fat aunt who has a thing for cats and pack-rat behavior. Most of her cameos in this novel leave her weight as the biggest and most important issue, even after it’s ceased to be a problem for Colie.

Both of Colie’s best moments happen because boys paid her attention—the new her, not the old her. The new Colie, who is not fat anymore and will no longer be a pushover finds her voice and sees herself…through boys. It felt like the novel was telling me that if she hadn’t lost the weight she would still be holding on to a negative self-image and therefore never have the nerve to approach either of the kids as equals. Once again, I am left bemused and wondering what the hell this book is trying to tell me. WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, DESSEN? That the negative self-image is caused by the weight? Because I’m fat and I still have self-esteem. I don’t let people treat me like crap. You don’t have to be thin to demand respect from people: it has nothing to do with weight.

The sisters were the best developed and that might not be a compliment. It was another ugly-duckling-to-swan story: yawn. Another Days of Our Lives flavored plot point: predictable. Norman was a non-entity and also, I might be tired of the sensitive artist love-interest type. The romance and conflict around it felt shoved in at the last second, whereas a friendship would have felt more true to where Colie was at the time.

All in all I wish I had started reading Dessen’s books when she first started writing. Her stories of the past are cobbled together. I don’t want to knock it too much: I do it myself with my own writing because I’m learning, but also I’m not published yet, either. Ira Glass talks about this: how we create and we can see that although we’re making something to the best of our ability, it’s not where it should be yet. There’s a gap. This Lullaby was the line in Dessen’s work where she finally walked into her own voice with an ability and experience to create really well-rounded characters that weren’t predictable and flat, but rich and human, and scenarios that were the same.

That said, now I’m going to go eat some ice cream.

None!