My Eyes Are Up Here is a razor-sharp debut about a girl struggling to rediscover her sense of self in the year after her body decided to change all the rules.If Greer Walsh could only live inside her head, life would be easier. She’d be able to focus on excelling at math or negotiating peace talks between her best friend and . . . everyone else. She wouldn’t spend any time worrying about being … time worrying about being the only Kennedy High student whose breasts are bigger than her head.
But you can’t play volleyball inside your head. Or go to the pool. Or have confusingly date-like encounters with the charming new boy. You need an actual body for all of those things. And Greer is entirely uncomfortable in hers.
Hilarious and heartbreakingly honest, My Eyes Are Up Here is a story of awkwardness and ferocity, of imaginary butterflies and rock-solid friends. It’s the story of a girl finding her way out of her oversized sweatshirt and back into the real world.
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Let’s just start with the cover of this book! The cover was illustrated FABULOUSLY! I love the text, the colors, the font, and how the text is written where no one should be looking in Greer’s opinion! The book just drew me in so much, and made me want to read the book so badly! All I can say is that is one of my new favorite laugh out loud, but still representative of the book, covers. Okay, so Greer’s personality is AMAZING! I love her snarkiness and I just think that she is the perfect main character for this book. Just in the few pages, you can see that Zimmerman is trying to address some huge problems and controversies through this book, due to the fact that she is emphasizing how Greer wants to be known for something other than her chest size. I am so excited to get my hands on this book and read it all, because just the few pages drew me in!
So I won this from a Bookish First giveaway right when all the pandemic hit here in the US. And so I didn’t get an ARC or a copy of the book until right before the publishing date. And by then, my schedule was already off, and I have trouble fitting in extra books. But I made sure finally to find a time to fit it into my blogging schedule, and now here is my review.
Once I did pick it up, I was swept right into the story. The author used great humor to help with this touchy subject. But not just humor, there was also a lot of realistic details and ways that things happened. Of course I totally understood why Greer pushed Jackson away, or at least made sure he knew that she knew that it was only friendliness and nothing more from him. Because I’ve felt that way my whole life. The few times I thought maybe a guy was actually flirting and interested in me, he wouldn’t be, and then I’d get rejected or feel humiliated. So I get it.
What Greer went through physically I kind of get as well. While I wasn’t suffering from the endowments that she had when I was younger, I totally get what she is saying about the bras not being cute when you are a larger size like I am now, not to mention that if you do find ones that are cute, they don’t really fit right, and definitely don’t have any support. But to be a high schooler having to deal with those things would be really sad, when you want to do the same things as everyone else. I can’t even picture what that special bra she got looked like, other than a straight jacket that I pictured in my head.
There were a few very hilarious its. First there was a section where they were in math class and the teacher asked about “number two”. Yeah, my brain is pretty much still stuck in middle school humor from teacher there for about 15 years. So I was laughing along with the boys in her class so much. And then there was the line, “Are you comparing my boobs to a Nazi mole?” I couldn’t stop giggling at that for a long time after I read it.
A great book, I’ll be donating my copy to the library where I work!
My Eyes Are Up Here
BY Laura Zimmermann
My Eyes Are Up Here is a wonderful debut that is a great take on a 15 year old girl named Greer Walsh and how her body changes everything from how she sees herself and how others see her. It truly is a great story, funny banter and the teenage angst were all written very well. Underneath it all is how a young woman deals with her own body image and accepting herself and loving herself first and foremost. I loved and enjoyed that she found a community of friends in her volleyball team that supports her for who she is. This is an endearing story that will resonate with a lot of readers who went through changes if not the breasts, it’s acne, height, weight, and a lot of other things that may seem trivial but really quite emotionally draining and taxing as you just want to fit in just like all the rest.
This is a book I will recommend to all readers for the fun and light read with a beautiful layer of friendship and acceptance theme that I really enjoyed reading about.
This is a cute and entertaining coming of age book. MC Greer Walsh is a funny, relatable and likable fifteen year old who is doing her best to accept her large bra size. Her body practically changed over night and she may be overthinking, but she wants out. Plus it does not help that her clothes do not fit anymore and they now get it the way. People make it obvious when they see her, so she tends to wear oversized clothes. Being a teenager comes with a lot of self acceptance, self confidence, and in reality kids can be cruel you will get teased to either having a small bra size or a large bra size. She has a new crush on Jackson and he likes her too but Greer is overthinking again. Thanks to Dutton Books for a copy. This is my honest review.
this was such a fun coming of age story and i actually enjoyed this even though the first 50 pages was hard and some pages since they were a bit unrealistic but when i finally got through it is such a fast and refreshing book to and i enjoyed Greer and her story this was such a quick read and finished it within two days of starting it, and it was a very cute and relatable story