The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

Title: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
Author: Carolyn Mackler
ISBN: 0763620912

Plot Summary: Virginia is a blonde, overweight ugly ducking born into a family of over-achieving swans. She deals with her negative emotions by either eating them away or engaging in various forms of self-injury. She carries on a romance with a classmate, Froggy, but hides it for fear of public ridicule, and misses her best friend, Shannon, a chronic stutterer, who has moved across the country with her parents. When her golden-boy brother is toppled off his pedestal, Virginia tries to find better ways of coping with her feelings about his mistakes, her life, and the world in general. In doing so, she must confront not only her family's bad habit of denial, but her own feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth, if she is to finally become more comfortable in her own skin.