The Big Reveal

by Jen Larsen

Overview

The Big Reveal asks hard-hitting feminist questions while reveling in some of life's greatest joys: chasing your passions, falling in love, and embracing yourself exactly as you are.

Addie is a talented dancer, a true-blue friend, and a fat, fierce, and driven young woman. When she's accepted into the prestigious dance company of her dreams, she thinks nothing can bring her down--until she realizes she doesn't have enough money to go. Refusing to give up, Addie and her friends decide to put on a top-secret, invitation-only burlesque show to raise funds. But word soon gets out, and the slut- and body-shaming begin. Has Addie been resisting the patriarchy, or playing right into its hands?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250853271
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	12/06/2022
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,095,256
Product dimensions:	5.35(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.15(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jen Larsen is the critically acclaimed author of multiple books, including the young adult novel Future Perfect. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, with her wife.

Editorial Reviews

"Though bigotry against fat people batters against Addie’s self-confidence (from the gross boys who neg her to her mother’s well-meaning but abusive obsession with diets), her determination to love herself and claim her fatness are empowering. There’s no hidden message of avoiding food, no incidental weight loss paralleling Addie’s growth, just the conviction of one girl and her excellent friends that they are awesome and powerful and sexy. Unabashedly, determinedly positive, with truly comical banter and the heroic climax of a teen movie." —Kirkus Reviews

"Addie is a compelling narrator, witty and dramatic and bold. . .There’s a definite Julie Murphy energy to the story, so her fans will appreciate Addie’s vitality: “I want it all. I want to wrap my arms around it and jump up and down. I want to see what’s next.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"With a broad cast of characters, including one who's suggested to be demisexual, Larsen depicts the diverse world of dance and creative expression in Addie’s friends and their adventures. . .A natural recommendation for fans of Jennifer Mathieu’s Moxie looking for a story about body positivity and a better understanding of the burlesque world." —Booklist

From the Publisher

2021-09-29
A White high school dancer, unable to afford a prestigious summer opportunity taught by an amazing, fat dance director, discovers burlesque.

Eighteen-year-old Addie loves her friends and lives for dance. In the performing arts track at the Michigan boarding school where she’s one of the few scholarship kids, Addie’s flourished far from her thinness-obsessed mother in Florida. She wins a spot in a competitive program for aspiring dancers in Milan, with a director who’s “dramatically, unapologetically fat, and perfect.” But Addie doesn’t win the program’s scholarship, and how is she going to get $6,000? Her BFFs (a Black lesbian Instagram influencer; a queer Korean American boy who embraces gender as a spectrum; and a joyful White girl) convince Addie to let them help raise the money by dancing. Sexy dancing, of course. But in their sex-negative, misogynist high school, this fundraiser’s going to have to be secret. Though bigotry against fat people batters against Addie’s self-confidence (from the gross boys who neg her to her mother’s well-meaning but abusive obsession with diets), her determination to love herself and claim her fatness are empowering. There’s no hidden message of avoiding food, no incidental weight loss paralleling Addie’s growth, just the conviction of one girl and her excellent friends that they are awesome and powerful and sexy.

Unabashedly, determinedly positive, with truly comical banter and the heroic climax of a teen movie. (Fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews