My Eyes Are Up Here

Gr 9 Up–Greer Walsh doesn’t want to hide in her oversized gray hoodie all of the time. She wants to wear the same type of clothes that her classmates do, and the clothes that her mother (a very enthusiastic relocation specialist) wants her to. But no one wants to talk about what Greer is concealing, not even most of her friends. It takes Greer joining the JV volleyball team for her to finally confront the fact that her breasts, “larger than her head,” are literally in her way. She is uncomfortable and unable to move how she wants, and obsesses over whether she needs breast reduction surgery; or maybe just different types of bras to help her feel like a so-called “normal” teen girl. Add in a potential romance with the son of one of her mother’s clients, and Greer is finally ready to stop hiding. Deploying a wise and wry first-person narration, Zimmerman brings a very real teen issue to light, doing so in a choice-positive way; readers will commiserate with Greer and quite possibly conclude that with every kind of body difference comes very real stigma and pain. The mother-daughter relationship resonates, as does Greer’s navigation of a relationship that she never thought she’d be lucky enough to have.