Inclusive Teen Reads: Body Size

Sixteen stories celebrating fat teens with bodies of many shapes and from many communities, cultures, races, genders, and orientations in contemporary settings as well as fictional worlds

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who's under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend BeBe is a people-pleaser, a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they'd lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.

Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn't dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn't call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she's about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother have set for girls like her. She'll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she'll do it better than anyone else"-- From publisher's description.

Overweight sixteen-year-old Charlie yearned for her first kiss while her perfect best friend, Amelia, fell in love, so when she finally starts dating and learns the boy asked Amelia out first, she is devastated.

Seventeen-year-old Kat Sanchez uses photos of a friend to create a fake Instagram account, but when one of her posts goes viral and exposes Kat's duplicity, her entire world--both real and pretend--comes crashing down around her.

Told in two voices, disappointed-in-love Ashish Patel and self-proclaimed fat athlete Sweetie Nair begin to find their true selves while dating under contract.

A boy with face blindness and a girl who struggles with weight fall in love.

Juliet, a self-identified queer, Bronx-born Puerto Rican-American, comes out to her family to disastrous results the night before flying to Portland to intern with her feminist author icon--whom Juliet soon realizes has a problematic definition of feminism that excludes women of color.

Teen matchmaker, Lahey, has two days to find herself a date for her rival cousin Summer's sweet sixteen.

Raised in the ren faire circuit, seventeen-year-old Madelineis grieving the loss of her mother when she meets Arthur, the son of the faire's new owners, who encourages her to go on adventures, take chances, and enjoy life.

Harlem teenager Nala is looking forward to a summer of movies and ice cream until she falls in love with the very woke Tye and pretends to be a social activist.

Told in alternating voices, awkward teenagers Bethany and Jacob must navigate blossoming feelings after agreeing to date each other as practice for the real deal.

Seventeen-year-old Whit, a plus-sized Puerto-Rican girl, is forced to plan the school's Fall Formal with her handsome ex.

Derry and her eight siblings live in an isolated house by the lake, separated from the rest of the world by an eerie and menacing forest. Frank, the man who raised them after their families abandoned them, says it’s for their own good. After all, the world isn’t safe for people with magic. And Derry feels safe--most of the time. Until the night her eldest sister disappears. Jane and Derry swore to each other that they’d never go into the forest, not after their last trip ended in blood, but Derry is sure she saw Jane walk into the trees. When another sibling goes missing and Frank’s true colors start to show, feeling safe is no longer an option. Derry will risk anything to protect the family she has left. Even if that means returning to the forest that has started calling to Derry in her missing siblings’ voices. As Derry spends more time amidst the trees, her magic grows more powerful . . . and so does the darkness inside her, the viciousness she wants to pretend doesn’t exist. But saving her siblings from the forest and from Frank might mean embracing the darkness. And that just might be the most dangerous thing of all.

While investigating the supposed suicides of her best friend, Riley, and mean girls June and Dayton, sixteen-year-old Wiccan Mila Flores accidentally brings them back to life.

Sixteen-year-old Bridget Bloom has to find a new way to shine when she is challenged not to sing for an entire year by her prestigious Broadway-pipeline boarding school's dean.

Six disgruntled teens are forced to spend their winter break at fat camp during Flagstaff, Arizona's worst blizzard in a century, only to find that Camp Featherlite is even worse than expected because it is crawling with genetically-modified monsters.

Haylah Swinton is an ace best friend, a loving daughter, and an incredibly patient sister to a four-year-old nutcase of a brother. Best of all, she’s pretty confident she’s mastered making light of every situation―from her mom’s new boyfriend to unsolicited remarks on her plus-sized figure. Haylah’s learning to embrace all of her curvy parts and, besides, she has a secret: one day, she’ll be a stand-up comedian star. So when impossibly cool and thirstalicious Leo reveals he’s also into comedy, Haylah jumps at the chance to ghost-write his sets. But is Leo as interested in returning the favor? Even though her friends warn her of Leo’s intentions, Haylah’s not ready to listen―and she might just be digging herself deeper toward heartbreak. If Haylah’s ever going to step into the spotlight, first she’ll need to find the confidence to put herself out there and strut like the boss she really is.

The last thing sixteen-year-old Maisie Martin thought she'd be doing over vacation is entering a beauty pageant. Not when she's spent most of her life hiding her body from everyone. Not when her Dad is AWOL and her gorgeous older sister has returned to rock Maisie's already shaky confidence. And especially not when her best friend starts flirting with the boy she's always loved. But Maisie's got something to prove. As she writes down all the ways this vacation is going from bad to worse in her school-assignment journal, what starts as a homework torture-device might just end up being an account of how Maisie didn't let anything, or anyone, hold her back.

Told from two viewpoints, high school seniors Haley, who had a public breakdown, and shy Lewis, long-time member of the TV Production class, find that filming documentaries about their classmates' hidden talents reveals their own aspirations.

Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He's a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine. Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. Social media followers eat up her takes on everything from UFOs to holiday overconsumption--yet, she's still not cool enough for the popular kids' table. Which is why Brad abandoned her for the in-crowd years ago. (At least, that's how Celine sees it.) These days, there's nothing between them other than petty insults and academic rivalry. So when Celine signs up for a survival course in the woods, she's surprised to find Brad right beside her. Forced to work as a team for the chance to win a grand prize, these two teens must trudge through not just mud and dirt but their messy past. And as this adventure brings them closer together, they begin to remember the good bits of their history. But has too much time passed . . . or just enough to spark a whole new kind of relationship?

This pun-filled YA contemporary romance finds a teenage girl competing in a televised baking competition, with contestants including her ex-girlfriend and a potential new crush.

When Felipe, who is very insecure about his weight, is forced to spend winter break with his long-term crush, Caio, he must face his unresolved issues head-on.

Sixteen-year-old Willowdean wants to prove to everyone in her small Texas town that she is more than just a fat girl, so, while grappling with her feelings for a co-worker who is clearly attracted to her, Will and some other misfits prepare to compete in the beauty pageant her mother runs.

Drawing on her own diaries, Phoebe Wahl presents the illustrated journal of a teenage girl careening through the turmoil and ecstasy of adolescence amid school plays, art projects, favorite bands, blossoming friendships, and new love.