The Heart is Not a Size

April 19, 2010
Seventeen-year-old best friends Georgia and Riley plan to make a difference in the world their junior year by joining the GoodWorks team, a group of teenagers heading to Mexico to do community service. In Anapra, a small village outside Juárez, the girls find the heat nearly unbearable and the work—building a public bathroom for villagers—grueling. Observant, reliable Georgia is able to find beauty in the landscape and in the people she meets; however, she worries that Riley, who refuses to eat and is already “thin as a sunbeam,” suffers from anorexia, which drives a wedge between the girls. Themes of friendship, service, and transformation are skillfully woven into Kephart's (Nothing but Ghosts
) novel, but the overall message feels ambiguous. More focused and memorable are Georgia's descriptions of characters (“I was looking at Drake and seeing moons in his eyes, and seeing the ruin in the moons in those eyes...”) and observations (“Do the right thing, you risk ruin. Choose responsibility, and don't think that makes you someone's hero”), which make for lovely, poetic reading. Ages 12–up.

May 1, 2010
Gr 8 Up-In this novel best suited for contemplative teen readers, narrator Georgia, who is sturdy and studious, and Riley, wispy and artistic, have been friends since kindergarten in their Main Line Pennsylvania town. Winter break of junior year, Georgia learns of a summer service trip to Juarez, Mexico, talks her parents into letting her go, and pulls Riley into her plan. The latter two-thirds of the tale take place on the Good Works trip itself, as the characters slip past a boundary between the before and the after, highlighting the transformative power of such a mission. Riley has been whittling herself smaller and smaller to break the "average" mold her pampered and Botoxed mother has cast around her; and when Georgia notices that she is eating nothing while doing hard physical labor under a blazing sun, she breaks the code of silence and their friendship when she uses the A-word: anorexia. Riley turns away from Georgia, and Georgia turns to snapping photos of the people and landscape of their project: to construct a community bathroom for Anapra, a tin-roofed shanty town for border factory-assembly workers and their families. Georgia also watches and coaxes out of silence Drake, a boy as introspective as she, while she waits to see if Riley will come back to their friendship and acknowledge her eating disorder. Lyrically and philosophically written, the story is more message than compelling story-driven fiction. It's not likely to hook or hold most readers."Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GA"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2010
Georgia's concerns about her best friend Riley's eating disorder intensify when the girls travel to Juarez, Mexico, on a charitable mission. The juxtaposition of women's issues in Juarez and the United States is intriguing, and Kephart adeptly depicts the complicated relationship between Georgia and Riley. Ultimately, though, the pace of the novel drags and Riley's anorexia feels incidental to the plot.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)