STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES

Chris Crutcher deals with a number of moral and ethical issues in this story about friendship and tough decisions. Sarah Byrnes and Eric Calhoune forge a friendship based on shared pain--she is horribly scarred by an incident in her childhood, and Eric is overweight. As they get older, Eric joins the swim team and loses weight, but the two still remain friends. Then one day, Sarah goes into a catatonic state, and Eric finds that he didn't know the whole truth about her. Johnny Heller's narration trips occasionally when he doesn't sufficiently pause as a scene shifts in place or time or when the listener isn't certain who is speaking. But, as always, Heller makes a convincing teenaged narrator. A.F. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB / MAR 03]