about the book
“Butter” is a 423-pound high school boy. He has, due to his enormous weight, dealt with bullying his entire high school career, being often voted in yearbooks as “most likely to have a heart attack.” Though he has heard all the arguments about the inner life, the intellectual and emotional life—which he has nurtured with a love of music and a honed sense of humor—he cannot see past his outer-life, physical defects.
No one else seems able to either.
“Butter” has had enough. He would rather die. He plans to eat himself to death, in front of a webcam, broadcasted live to the world!
Announcing his plan on his website, he is met with not pity, not with insults, not even with indifference, as he had expected. Instead a group of bratty, morbid cheerleaders lead the school in cheering him on to his goal! They and others even suggest food items to add to his last meal…
Ironically, for the first time in his life, when it is about to end, “Butter” feels popular, and that feels good. However, this popularity has given him a reason to live—but if he continues to live, that will be the end of his popularity. Will “Butter” commit social suicide, or the real deal?
about the author
A journalist by day and a novelist by night, Erin Jade Lange is revved by the stories she works on, especially the ones dealing with contemporary, real-world issues. Those issues tend to find their way into her fiction writing at night, and she hopes that both kinds of her writing will impact teenagers for the better.
An only child, Erin relied on her imagination for her own entertainment—a love of books and writing naturally arose out of that. She loves nature, too, having grown up in northern Illinois near one of the only places where the Mississippi River flows east to west, rather than north to south.
Today Erin lives in the desert of Arizona, where there is sunshine, but few rivers. She would love to live in a place with all three: desert, sunshine, and a good river… But that place probably doesn’t exist.
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Teen Writers Bloc
Author interview : Cracking the Cover
Also by Erin Jade Lange:
Dead Ends. Bloomsbury USA Children. 2013.
read more!
Dead Ends by Erin Jade Lange
Dane is a bully, but he won’t beat up on girls or “special” kids like Billy D. Billy has Down syndrome, and when one day Dane restrains himself from hitting him, Billy takes it as a sign of friendship. Dane and Billy D learn that neither of them have fathers—but Dane has a map with riddles on it left by his. Could they be clues to where Dane’s father has gone?
Fat Kid Rules the World by Kelly L. Going
296-pound high schooler Troy has no friends; utterly miserable, he decides to throw himself in front of an oncoming New York subway train. Then Curt saves him—Curt, a semi- homeless dropout who lives in the subway and plays guitar. Plays guitar! He is a guitar genius, Troy decides, and when Curt makes Troy his drummer, both teens’ lives change.
Remembering Raquel by Vivian Vande Velde
Raquel had a tendency to be invisible to her classmates and almost everyone in her small town. Then she got hit by a car, and suddenly she is no longer invisible, ignorable. Her classmates, family, her best friend—and the woman who was driving the car—speak out about her, showing how even quiet, “invisible” people affect the world.