Review: Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot.

Main Characters: Heather Wells
Series: Heather Wells Series, Book 1

Heather Wells Rocks!

Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two — and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamor and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather’s perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York’s top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather’s residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen — not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives — even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective!

But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly ex-pop star who’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong . . .

This book makes me laugh.

A lot.

It’s such a fun treat of a book that I wonder if I’ll ever get sick of re-reading it. I doubt it. Meg Cabot has the ability to make me care for her characters even when they do such silly things. Heather Wells is one helluva likeable character. She’s not perfect but that’s what I loved about her. She has a good heart and she gets herself into some troubling situations and then she leans on her room mate and ex boyfriend’s brother, Cooper to bail her out.

Which he does on a daily basis.

Cooper is also the guy who gave her a place to stay. She’s staying in a brownstone that Cooper owns and she pays rent by helping him with his administrative work for his PI business. Heather and Cooper work well together, he stays out of her way and saves her when she needs saving and she keeps him organized, entertained and exasperated.

Fair trade, don’t you think? =P

On top of being Coop’s secretary, Heather is also the new assistant dorm directory and the nearby college. So she goes from singing her heart out at malls and being adored by tweeny bopper fans all over the world to being an assistant dorm director for a small New York college and she’s actually pretty okay with her life. She could probably have done without her Mom running away with all of her money and her manager but Heather is making things work even if people are saying she’s a fat has been.

Size 12 is NOT fat, people!

This book has Heather chasing down clues to find out why the students in her dorm are dropping like flies. She runs into one disaster after another but all of the madness that became her life made for one entertaining ride. If you haven’t read this book then I totally recommend it. It’s got Meg Cabot’s trademark humor and a cast of characters that will have happy as a clam. Heather is fantastic and Cooper is swoonworthy and everything is just the bomb.

Read this book, you won’t regret it.

Final Grade: B

Reading Order:

Buy the book: B&N|Borders|Amazon

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