Eat Your Heart Out

Gr 8 Up–When six teens arrive at Camp Featherlite, touted as a fat camp where campers lose weight unusually quickly, in the middle of a fierce Arizona blizzard, they know right away that something isn’t right. Allison, who wants to be an actress like her famous—and thin—sister, is quick to assign everyone a horror movie type. Vivian, “the action girl,” knows that she doesn’t need to lose weight, yet her mother sent her off to fat camp anyway. Paul’s (“the jerk”) father runs the pharmaceutical company behind the camp and is there to get an inside look. Sheldon (“the nerd”) is trying to prove he has real-life skills, and Rachel (“the outcast”) just needs time away from home to think. Allison calls herself “the basket case,” and pod facilitator Steve is “the jock.” The six teens soon find themselves in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and may be humanity’s only hope of exposing the camp’s secrets—if they can survive the thin zombies trying to eat them. This book successfully combines a zombie story with humor and social commentary on fatphobia without feeling didactic. Chapters alternate from each main character’s point of view, giving it a cinematic feel.