Fat Boy vs. the Cheerleaders by Geoff Herbach (review)

Gabe started gaining weight when his mother left and he and his emotionally manipulative father sank into a depression, and now he’s universally known as Chunk. He still has his place in the high school hierarchy, hanging out with his two best friends, playing trombone in the school band, and only occasionally falling prey to the jocks’ abusive sense of humor. When the cost of sodas goes up in the school machines, however, and it becomes clear that the money is being rerouted from the band to the formation of a new dance team, Chunk decides it’s time to take action. He turns to his gruff grandfather, a former bodybuilder, to help him get in shape, and he tries to think of ways to protest the reallocation of funds as well as to raise the money to reinstate band camp. Less witty than angry, Gabe’s story depends too heavily on caricatures and tropes from high school dramatic comedies, from the sputtering, testosterone-fueled gym teacher and his football-playing minions to the corrupt principal, from the misunderstood queen bee to the supportive activist English teacher. Herbach does introduce some new figures into the mix with a sensitive black jock who schools Gabe on how to lead a successful civil rights–style protest, but only a few of the characters achieve the kind of psychological depth that make their actions wholly credible. However, Gabe’s address to the voiceless lawyer throughout the novel allows for a bit of tantalizing unreliability in his account of the hijinks, giving the impression of a deeper story behind the sensational one for readers to work out on their own.