On their last day of "fat camp," best friends Emerson, Marley, and Georgia list things they'll do when they are finally thin—eat dessert in public, hold hands with a cute boy, other activities they feel their weight prevents them from doing. Now in their 30s, all three still struggle with weight. When Emerson dies suddenly, Georgia and Marley are left with her final wish—to fulfill the list they made as teenagers. As Georgia and Marley set out to complete their tasks, they learn what is really important for finding happiness. Georgia must come to terms with her disapproving, fat-shaming mother and brother, revisit the reason for her divorce, and face a lifelong eating disorder. Marley, seemingly the most well-adjusted of the three, works toward grieving losses, loving herself, and accepting love from others. Both find that the list made by naïve teenagers takes them to healing and self-acceptance. Higgins (Now That You Mention It) writes with her trademark heart, humor, and emotion, addressing the serious and somber subject of body image and how weight has become the obsession of many women and how all too often judgment reigns supreme. VERDICT Highly recommended for all popular women's fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, 2/19/18.]—Brooke Bolton, Boonville-Warrick Cty. P.L., IN

Higgins (Now That You Mention It) writes with uncommon grace and empathy about a fraught topic for many people: weight. Marley, Georgia, and Emerson meet as children at a camp for overweight teenagers. Fast forward to adulthood: Emerson dies young—and makes Marley and Georgia vow to relish every moment of life, starting with the "things we'll do when we're skinny" list they composed one summer at camp. Told in alternating first-person chapters, the story follows Marley and Georgia as they learn their value and their own beauty, while Emerson's interspersed journal entries address a dream version of herself. Higgins doesn't pull any punches as she starkly illustrates how the judgmental attitudes of even close friends and family—brilliantly illustrated by Georgia's cruel and overbearing brother and her brittle, skinnier-than-thou mother—can caustically eat away at self-worth. The author provides sharp psychological insight into her characters, such as when Georgia thinks, "Life was kind and full of chances. Sometimes we didn't take them. Sometimes we hid our truth and acted out of fear. Sometimes we turned away and closed the door." This novel is a winner. (Aug.)