Best friends Georgia and Riley don’t keep much from one another — but each is bearing a tart fruit of secrecy in different ways. When an opportunity to visit Mexico as part of a group community project comes up, Georgia longs to get away from her stagnant present before college . . . but is afraid to go alone. She convinces Riley to sign up, too — and their secrets can’t help but emerge in the baking-hot sun of Anapra.

Beth Kephart’s The Heart Is Not a Size is a story of friendship, trust and acceptance. With Kephart’s trademark lyrical language and descriptions that feel like a pierce through the heart, her young adult novel struck a chord with me — and likely will with anyone who has had a best friend.

Georgia is the sort of talented girl wracked by self doubt we all remember from our teen years — or were ourselves. I definitely relate to her body-image issues and uncomfortableness in her own skin, especially compared to Riley’s so-thin-she’s-disappearing presence. The novel is about Riley’s on-the-surface eating disorder, yes, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about self-esteem and longing and desperately wanting to belong, but not knowing how to start.

It’s Georgia falling to pieces without anyone to bolster her up, and learning to save herself . . . and also about Riley still being Riley, impossible and beautiful, and her longing to spread beauty to others when she cannot see it in herself. I wanted to smack Riley’s mother for the number she’s done on her daughter, and these self-confidence issues made me really think about how I will want to speak with and to a future daughter/child someday. My heart ached for them both, especially as Georgia struggled with anxiety and doubt. Who hasn’t?

The Heart Is Not a Size is a quick, atmospheric read that dropped me in the middle of the cracking villages of Anapra and broke my heart for its inhabitants. Kephart herself visited the village, as she notes at the end of the book, and her imagery is amazing. From the dolls abandoned atop crumbling roofs to the eager, hopeful faces of children to the wolfish dog who stalks their lodging, it was so descriptive and engulfing. For a few days, I was truly a part of their expedition.

Though I wished at times to have bonded more with Riley outside of Georgia’s lens, I think the dependency of their friendship — and how they learn to separate, just a bit — is important. I couldn’t help picturing Riley as the sort of Head Cheerleader Princess-type that tortured peons in school, but I know isn’t right. I just felt like I got to know Georgia much better than her best friend, though I guess that’s to be expected. Georgia is our narrator, after all.

Fans of young adult fiction, socially-conscious novels and lyrical writing will find much to love in Kephart’s story of acceptance and forgiveness. It was a beautifully-written work I will remember.

4 out of 5!

Pub: 2010 • Goodreads • LibraryThing • Amazon • Author Website
Personal copy purchased by Meg