Future Perfect

Gr 9 Up—Ashley Perkins's lifelong dream is to attend Harvard, become a surgeon, and change the world. As she nears graduation, the dream is within reach. But how will she pay for Harvard? For that, she may have to make a deal with her grandmother. Her grandmother is the matriarch who has made Ashley's life of comfort possible, but to send the teen to Harvard she requires one trade-off: Ashley must get weight loss surgery. The teen plans to tell her no instantly, but as she considers the offer, it's not as easy as she planned. As she faces her future, the protagonist must decide who she is beyond her weight and what she really stands for. Larsen's reluctance to accurately describe Ashley's body and actual weight make the general premise unbelievable. The procedure is referred to only as "weight loss surgery" and it's never clear if Ashley's grandmother is offering simple liposuction or actual bariatric surgery, which alters a person's internal organs. There's a considerable difference and it's not really plausible that a character who describes herself as being "a size 18 (sometimes 20)" would even qualify for this surgery, which is a major operation. While Larsen has created likable, empathetic characters in Ashley and her close friends, the basic premise is too weak to sustain believability, which will keep most teens from being immersed in the narrative.