Staff Writer
The award winning Chris Crutcher presents his Young Adult novel, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. This book takes friendship to a whole new level by showing the abnormal relationship between an overweight boy, and a scarred face girl. I found myself reading this book for hours, and I just couldn't keep myself away from it. The story itself was very touching and realistic. The main characters, Eric Calhoune, the overweight jock, and Sarah Byrnes, the tough scarred face girl, have been friends ever since grade school. I wouldn't exactly say they've been with each other from thick and thin, but I can definitely say they’re close enough to be called best friends. The first point of view in this book really puts you in a position where you feel like you're the one experiencing the melodrama that's happening here. All the action in this book is described so well, it's like watching a movie, except without all the moving pictures. Eric and Sarah were both outcasts; in fact, her scars and his fat made them the perfect match. Eric was always by Sarah's side no matter what, even if she is sometimes a little tough on him.
Sarah had a terrible life. She never complained to anybody about her problems. Her abusive father, Virgil Byrnes, was a mentally unstable man. He was very violent towards his family and anybody else who tries to interfere with them. As time went by, there sat down a girl with her head down low in a mental ward of Sacred Heart Hospital. Every day, she sat at the same spot without a word coming out of her mouth. Eric had to figure out what was wrong with her, and even tried to find some people she knew to try to find out what might have happened to her. She had only one "friend", besides Eric, and that was the school bully, Dale Thornton. Sarah and Dale didn't start off on good terms the first time they met. He was the school bully and even tried to pick on Sarah, the smartest and toughest person Eric knew. Though, she didn't give up without a fight. He started to constantly beat her but eventually gave up. When they were in high school, Eric and Sarah wrote a newspaper called, Crispy Pork Rinds. It was basically a newspaper bashing on the people they didn't like. They did eventually write about Dale Thornton, but he had to find out sooner or later who wrote the paper about him. The newspaper didn't tell who wrote about these specific people, because if they were, they probably wouldn't even be alive till now. As time went by, they eventually collaborated with Dale, which was what brought them all together. Dale asked what happened to her face and the same answer she always gave out was, "I was burned from a boiling pot of spaghetti". To Dale that was a straight up lie. He saw the way her father looked. He had an abusive father like her too, which gave him the idea that those scars weren't from a boiling pot of spaghetti. He eventually told Eric about what might have happened to her face leaving him wondering of what might have actually happened. Eric didn't give up and eventually got Sarah to tell him what happened. She eventually told him the truth, which was what got her to start talking again. Actually she never stopped talking in the first place. There was nothing wrong with her, she told Eric she needed time to think and to keep away from her dad as far as possible because, her dad became crazy like he was back then when he drove his mother out of the house. She told Eric the truth, and only Eric. Sarah never trusted anybody, because everybody will betray one way or another. She needed help to find a way to get her dad as far away as possible. The secret that she was hiding the whole time was that scars weren't from a boiling pot of spaghetti, it was from her dad. The night that her parents were arguing, he started to beat her and everything eventually all came down to Sarah being in a hospital. She finally woke up and asked where her mother was. There was given no straight answer. She never knew what happened to her mother till later...
