The Big Reveal by Jen Larsen (review)

Eighteen-year-old Addie knows what she wants to do after senior year: dance in the summer program at Angles, the Italian company whose director is, like Addie, a fat woman with serious ballet chops (“I am a powerhouse. Fat, and fierce”). When Addie’s accepted, she’s over the moon, but there’s one problem: she can’t afford to go. She and her supportive best friends at boarding school decide on a daring solution: put on a secret performance of old-school burlesque and sell tickets. When the school finds out, will that torpedo their future? Addie is a compelling narrator, witty and dramatic and bold except when fatphobia makes her doubt herself, and her experience with and characterization of burlesque is elucidating (“It’s ownership. It’s feeling absolutely, deliciously, wildly sexy, totally in control”). Larsen takes the story in an interesting direction when the school’s dean punishes the girls disproportionately and the girls and their friends fight back, making the point that the school simultaneously polices female bodies and pushes them to be on show while waving away any objection to male nudity as “boys will be boys.” The showdown is a bit wishful but it’s satisfying, as is Addie’s gradual romance with awkward classmate Jack, who moves from annoying to supportive; even more satisfying is the long-term intimate ride-or-die friendship between the three girls. There’s a definite Julie Murphy (Dumplin’, BCCB 12/15) energy to the story, so her fans will appreciate Addie’s vitality: “I want it all. I want to wrap my arms around it and jump up and down. I want to see what’s next.”