Book Review: Big Bones by Laura Dockrill

Title: Big Bones
Author: Laura Dockrill
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Release Date: 8th March 2018
Synopsis: Bluebelle, aka BB, aka Big Bones - a sixteen-year-old girl encouraged to tackle her weight even though she's perfectly happy, thank you, and getting on with her life and in love with food. Then a tragedy in the family forces BB to find a new relationship with her body and herself. Moving, memorable and hilarious.

Review: Oh what a beautiful love letter to food this book was and I loved it. I want more from Bluebell and whilst we're at it if there's any cake going a slice of that too!

I was hungry with every page, and it made me consider the food I was eating, thinking about how Bluebell would describe it, making up silly descriptions as I was cooking and eating. Because this was about so much more than just food, but the enjoyment and empowerment of it, the benefits food can have and the way it brings people together.

Bluebell is fat and this isn't a slur for her its just a fact.. It is something she has owned and is boldly unapologetic about. Good for her. We need more body positive characters in a time where we're all made to feel some kind of way about the way we look and what we should and shouldn't be putting into our bodies. SOMETIMES I JUST WANT TWO DOUGHNUTS! Its a message we all struggle with, and struggle to accept but this book was great because it didn't look her weight as an issue, instead it was full of BB's bliss view on eating, for the enjoyment and appreciation she had from sourcing the ingredients to cooking and enjoying the food. And theeeen  how that can also fit into a healthy lifestyle (avocado's are a super food don't ya know). It wasn't preachy, it was progressive to how things like eating right and exercise are important for your health, but don't have to be these extremely micromanaged diets. Every body is beach body ready....Fish and Chips by the seaside would be ideal right now ( you see what I mean).

Written in this fluid and open conversational tone you were intimately a part of Bluebells life, the words gushing out on the page where it became so much more than a food diary. Bluebell was just a normal girl who asked the questions every 16 year old should be... how do I know what I want to be doing, what do I even want to be doing now and why can't the person i work with and fancy love me too. We've all asked those questions before and we're all still asking them now. Bluebell, her sister, her parents and her friends all felt like people we could know, there were relateable moments all over the place...although if anyone played bum cheeks I have questions!, moments that made you want to hug someone and moments that make you smile.

This is the kind of book that you want to go to the park with on a Sunday afternoon and you'll devour it in one go. But bring a picnic because you will want to eat, and enjoy and get your life.