- Summary: Laurel and Viv have been best friends since the were kids. But as they’ve grown into teenagers, Viv has become more and more concerned with her body image. Viv’s father buys them both tickets to go on the Solu cruise, a cruise that’s goal is to showcase a new sweetener that guarantees weight loss. The host for the trip is a former child celebrity, Tom, who quickly falls for Laurel. As the cruise progresses, people begin to become addicted to Solu, turning them into vicious killers. People begin dying on the ship, but no one is stopping the distribution of the sweetener. Laurel and Tom join forces to save themselves and others on the cruise, including Viv who has succumbed to the addition. They soon find out that the creator of the sweetener new these things would happen and had masterminded the entire thing to rid the world of fat people.
- Textbook: This novel walks the line between modern realistic fiction and modern fantasy. The teenagers in the novel, as well as the focus on issues of teenage body image and young romance put the novel in the modern realistic fiction category. The characters mirror real life and that engages the reader and makes them feel like part of the story. But, as the story evolves and the Solu sweetener becomes an addiction, controlling people and forcing them to start killing each other and even drinking their blood to get the sweetener, fantasy elements begin to creep in. The idea of addiction is not far-fetched, but the movement from addition to practical vampirism is a stretch. The combination of elements keeps the reader involved in the story and the action carries through to the dramatic ending.
Laybourne, E. (2015). Sweet. New York, NY: Feiwel & Friends.
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