Bizarre all around
What's it like to be a giant I have no clue..
This just was bizarre, weird from page 1 I felt by the middle of the book that I was reading multiple stories.
I just didn't care for it.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This author seems to think that someone who is 260-ish pounds would require a special desk and would regularly break toilet seats. Ridiculous, fat-phobic trash.

Didn't finish this one as the writing didn't really work for me and I needed to move on to other books but did not play well with my colleagues who reviewed it for committee work.

A copy was sent to me by NetGalley and CandleWick Press and I am very grateful, but all opinions are my own. 

"Over seven feet tall and with a newfound ability to sense future events, Corinthia Bledsoe is far more than just another Midwestern high-school junior; she’s a force of nature. When she predicts with terrifying accuracy the outcome of a tornado that will hit her high school, leaving a cow standing midcourt in the Lugo Memorial field house, Corinthia finds herself at the epicenter of another kind of storm entirely. And as things get stranger and stranger — both in her small town and her own home — lives start to intersect in ways even Corinthia can’t foresee."

First of all... WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? When I first started reading, it was great although there's some sentences that irked me. Corinthia as a character is strange, I guess that's how the author wanted her to be, but she doesn't make sense. Her thinking is made up with some semi racist and semi ableist thoughts...like why though? She was supposed to be likeable and smart way beyond her age.  and that weird relationship with a dude who was like 30... whyyyyy whyyyyyy. She was 17, that was just out there.

One of the subplots that I like was Billy Ball, a bullied freshman with an obsession with Native American culture (especially their mythology about death) and he makes a list of people he hates in school. He was the only character in this book which made a little but of sense.

To be honest, I don't know where the author was going for, was he going for some open-ended novel? was he going for obscurity? I guess he made this novel to be like one those books with weird stuff that authors write in their YA novels. I don't know.

This might have been better as a screen play or a TV show like Lost and the Leftovers. 

2 out of 5 stars.

Lost of twists and turns that I didn't see coming (especially the ending)! The premise was very original, but I did feel that there were a lot of uncomfortable and disturbing scenes, and the sub plots never really came together fully.

There's weird and then there's weird. I kept expecting clearer elements of magic. We have prophecy, of a sort. I was waiting for the acknowledgement of Corinthia as a seer or something. We have a number of odd happenings, but the town just sort of rolls with it. It's sort of surreal. And we don't get any clear answers. Her brother, what's actually happening to Corinithia, her mother's other life, the volunteer at the school. All of these sub-plots are happening but don't resolve or even tie into the main plot in any significant way. In the end, it's hard to draw any conclusions or take away any messages. Too weird for me.

<p>This review will publish 3/6.</p>

<font face="Georgia"> <h3>Welcome to another session of Turning Pages!</h3><p><b>NB:</b> This is not going to be the average review; I finished this novel despite my better judgment, hoping for some twist in the narrative that I wasn't expecting, to make it work. I picked it up this book because of the title... and the fact that on the cover is a female. In fairytales, all the giants are male, and we have very few newer characterizations of tall girls in young adult literature, though the too-tall girl at the school dance was an ongoing trope for a lot of the earlier years of young adult lit. As this book was listed under fantasy, I thought it would be more of a fairytale. <b>Last warning</b>: It's not.</p>

<p><i><b>Synopsis</b></i>: After a pituitary tumor changes her body at age eleven, Corinthia Bledsoe emerges as 7'4" and 287 pounds. She uses a special desk, and a special toilet, because she's broken two. Her vision of a terrible triumvirate of tornadoes - and her subsequent loud, panicked warning of the entire school - is treated as some kind of violent dysfunction worthy of her being tackled by grown men, one of whom fantasizes as he does so about her bodily strength, and the kind of impact that she'd have on the gridiron. While Corinthia is already famous for her size and special-built desk, and for having a custom-built bathroom on campus, having broken two toilets since freshman year, she becomes terrifyingly infamous when the tornadoes come. </p>

<p>The story spins between Corintha's increasingly disturbing relationship to the school and community to the tale of Billy Ball, who, struggling with gastrointestinal problems and reeling from the death of his father, is enacting unexplained racist cliché "red face" rituals and obsessing on Native Americans. Not fitting in at the same school, he comes up with a list of students and faculty with whom his path has crossed, and seems to be preparing himself for violence. He seems vaguely aware of Corinthia, but they only meet once, and it doesn't propel the narrative in any direction. The third subplot returns to the Bledsoe household, and to a closer focus on Corintha's mother, who believes herself to be somehow tragically martyred for being Corintha's mother, and whose adult desires seem to be more important to her than her children's struggles.</p>

<p>Despite being a junior, Corinthia doesn't seem to have much of a view of the future, something which her ineffectual guidance counselor tries to elicit from her constantly, though her good-natured father seems prepared to accept whatever she'd like to do. Instead of a future, Corintha is mired in the present, as her brother disappears, and her mother goes into crisis. In possibly the oddest story thread in the entire book, Corinthia takes a road trip with one of the workmen fixing the school post-tornado, a man called Lavert. Corinthia's friendship with him, a grown man with a criminal past, and her understanding of his mortality is definitely unexpected, and strains the credulity of the reader past bearing.</p>

<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vHmMBu6rqHw/Wp2uqjFqhEI/AAAAAAAAI34/WD_60YBSGdM-93U2aE70zNoHVQyUeVB8QCLcBGAs/s1600/35793012.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img hspace=10 align=right src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vHmMBu6rqHw/Wp2uqjFqhEI/AAAAAAAAI34/WD_60YBSGdM-93U2aE70zNoHVQyUeVB8QCLcBGAs/s400/35793012.jpg" width="256" height="400" data-original-width="304" data-original-height="475" /></a><p><i><b>Observations</b></i>: Grotesquerie is a 20th century literary convention which, according to Wikipedia, can be linked with sci-fi and horror. For me, this novel falls squarely under grotesquerie, simply because Adam Rapp seems to be thoroughly disgusted with everyone in the entire book, and in his disgust, renders them... disgusting. From the names of the characters and their ill-fitting, cacophonous names to the description of Corinthia herself beginning from page one - "woodsplitter's hands," and the "great caves of her nostrils." Descriptions of her menstruation and nosebleeds, and comparisons between the two are a lovingly-depicted gross-fest.</p>

<p>The narrative never takes off, as it is heavily weighted with an abundance of cloying description, producing a plodding plot in a claustrophobic storyline which draws in the unsuspecting reader with the idea of a real giantess and instead confronts them with body dysphoria juxtaposed with an awkwardness masquerading as intimacy. No one seems to grow or change; the bizarre incidents simply crowd together, threaded with domino-sized teeth and Together, this creates one of the most unkind and body-averse narratives I've ever read, and an alleged YA book which focuses less on the young adult, her challenges and changes than on her body, and the bodies of everyone around her.</p>

<p>The body-consciousness remains central to the novel. At 287 pounds, Corinthia is said to be pretty, but every other word out of the narrative disregards that, and paints her as disgusting and vile. She's said to be third in her class - but every other description has her acting in bizarre and outlandish ways designed to repel the reader. Finally, Corinthia is alleged to have destroyed two toilets, once emerging covered in toilet water and swamping the girl's restroom...which is ...<i>ludicrous</i>, ignorant, and insulting.</p>

<p><b>FACT</b>: People heavier than 287 use toilets on the daily. <b>FACT</b>: Nothing happens. Toilets - regular old public restroom toilets, and certainly the floor-mounted, vitreous china sort used in public schools - are rated to bear the weight of a THOUSAND vertical pounds, and yes, I am the big nerd who looked that up, but this jarring falsehood stands out. 287 pounds is just a number, and anyone who weighs that is just - still - a <i>person</i>. These scenes felt like a badly set-up, dehumanizing fat joke rather than a story detail filling in the blanks about who Corinthia is and what she's about. Kids in high school are this weight on a regular basis, and stand to be hurt and insulted by this abhorrent characterization. Reader beware.</p>

<p>Corinthia - her family - her school - basically her entire corner of the State seems very white... yet the teens in the story are obsessed with people of color, to very significant degrees. Billy puts arrows in his hair and paints some racist cliche of warrior marks on his face. As her family dissolves, Corinthia begins to pal around with a grown man who is also a face-tatted, do-rag wearing cliché of a prison-release workman who, early in their relationship, refers to himself as "nigga"... For a novel which, up to that point, had displayed a casual lack of empathy for any of its characters, this white-guy-included racism wasn't entirely surprising, but still reveals very poor taste.</p>

<p><i><b>Conclusion</b></i>: I normally consider it a waste of time to review a novel which I vehemently dislike, but I made an exception for this because I walked into it unaware of its topic, or of any reputation with regard to its author. I won't make the same mistake again. While some will assign this novel as an example of satire, or may find within it deep literary meaning, or even feel that it is merely misplaced in terms of audience, and would crossover well with adults, for me, there is too much left unexplained, and what may have been a brilliant venture does not pan out in its execution. My main thought is that it is disturbing, written with a specific distaste and aversion for the body, doesn't have a discernible story arc, and is not especially respectful of the challenges and changes of adolescents, especially female adolescents. With its comparisons to people as animals and its basic disrespect for the teen body or mind, this novel seems to be an experiment with a broad scope which failed. </p>
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<hr width=55%><p>I received my copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. After March 20, you can find <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/aff/readersrant7?product=9780763667566"><i>FUM</i></a> by Adam Rapp at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!</p>
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*This review is a review of an ARC-Advanced Reader’s Copy-but all thoughts are my own*

Did Not Finish

But why did I DNF this?

1. A lot of words were stuck together: “lavender-andcottoncandycolored” etc. I know it hasn’t finished being edited, but still.

2. There were a lot of really weird/disgusting/creepy in a bad way sentences:

Read the examples AT YOUR OWN RISK

…Corinthia wonder whether or not he possesses nipples, or, rather, if under his clothes he is some other kind of being: a fish person with gills. Instead of a penis, does he possess a little hidden ventral fin? A spout?

Corinthia notices a dull, chalky stripe down the center of his tongue and wonders if he sometimes keeps the clown fish in there as some perverse exercise in oral pleasure.

3. There was some racist stuff:

…hot-blooded ch*l* way.

4. And it was so, so ableist. There was just pages and pages of abelist writing:

Be careful reading it if you’ve experienced ableism, especially from your own parents. Bolding is my own.

…when a mother is confronted with such a dramatic deformity of progeny
every day of her life, perhaps she must live in the hyper-present tense. It undoubtedly involves a certain amount of terror. Who knows how much larger her Corinthia’s hands will grow?

Those fish-belly white slabs with the creepy funeral home director fingers and Alpine peaked knuckles.

[Corinthia’s mother’s] nightmares come.

Which include:

Corinthia eating the local Lugo children, feasting on their limbs like drumsticks, her mouth a horror movie rictus of saliva and innocent, half chewed flesh, her eyes pinned and cougar-like,
her nostrils flaring ludicrously.

[Corinthia’s mother] has started to frequent a support group…gathers with a dozen or so other Parents of Grotesquely Disfigured Children, the PGDC.

And quotes like that just go on and on and on.

I really wanted to like this story. The idea of it is amazing. Sadly, it's over written to the point of being almost incomprehensible. When you have to stop to diagram a sentence to make sure you're reading it properly, it's hard to enjoy the story.

It's a shame because like I say, the idea is amazing and there's the bones of a good story here. I just couldn't deal with the language. DNF at 10%. I'll be watching out for the author, though, I think there are good things ahead of him.

Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.

There are just some books that don't work for some people no matter how hard they try to like it. Fum is that for me. And it's not for a lack of trying, because I really, really wanted to like this story. A girl who's over seven feet tall discovers she can predict the future? That's super awesome. But this writing style and I did not mas well together. In fact, it was down right grating. I appreciate what Rapp was trying to do, an omnicient look into all the character's live instead of a more limited view, but it was too much. There is a such think as overwritting and that was this book. It was chock full of too many details and descriptions that the actual story took a backseat to the details. Which was just a huge disappointment, because without that this would have been an incredible story.