Insightful, frank, and funny, My Eyes Are Up Here is a razor-sharp debut about a teenage girl struggling to rediscover her sense of self in the year after her body decided to change all the rules.
A “monomial” is a simple algebraic expression consisting of a single term. 30H, for example. Fifteen-year-old Greer Walsh hasn’t been fazed by basic algebra since fifth grade, but for the last year, 30H has felt like an unsolvable equation – one that’s made her world a very small, very lonely place. 30H is her bra size – or it was the last time anyone checked. She stopped letting people get that close to her with a tape measure a while ago.
Ever since everything changed the summer before ninth grade, Greer has felt out of control. She can’t control her first impressions, the whispers that follow, or the stares that linger after. The best she can do is put on her faithful XXL sweatshirt and let her posture – and her expectations for other people – slump.
But people – strangers and friends – seem strangely determined to remind her that life is not supposed to be this way. Despite carefully avoiding physical contact and anything tighter than a puffy coat, Greer finds an unexpected community on the volleyball squad, the team that hugs between every point and wears a uniform “so tight it can squeeze out tears.” And then there’s Jackson Oates, newly arrived at her school and maybe actually more interested in her banter than her breasts.
Laura Zimmermann’s debut is both laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully blunt, vulnerable and witty, heartbreaking and hopeful. And it will invite listeners to look carefully at a girl who just wants to be seen for all she is.
Title : My Eyes Are Up Here
Author : Laura Zimmermann
Format : Paperback ARC
Page Count : 352
Genre : Contemporary YA
Publisher : Dutton Books
Release Date : June 23, 2020
Reviewer : Micky
Rating : â
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Micky’s 3 star review
Headlines:
Made me sad
Body negativity
This book is about boobs, growing up with them, living with them, accepting them (or not). I am of the big-boobed population, so in some ways I could relate to the protagonist in this story but equally, I really did not relate to her. I did feel really sorry for her, not for her big boobs but for her self-perception and poor body image. The book made me incredibly sad, to be honest.
What I did like about the story was Greer finding a sport she loved and how she navigated the boob problem through playing, made her address her day to day boob-dom. Honestly, sometimes this story was just painful to watch play out and read.
The side story of Jackson and Greer was the nicest thing about the plot if only Greer could look away from her ‘girls’ a moment or two. I did love Jackson’s final declaration at the end, that was worth the wait.
Maybe this book will help young people with big boobs feel seen while trying not to be seen (if you get my drift) but I would have loved to have seen a more positive stance on this issue.
A Take from Two Cities 