To Be Honest

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By the end of this book .....I became an all-around Michael Leviton fan: this book, his music, and his photography! I wanted more of Savannah and her mother, this was the most interesting part of the book and yet at one point, there was more romance drama than touching what mattered the most. Thank you Nelle for making me realize these feelings are valid. This book will live forever in my heart. Leviton's memoir To Be Honest is alternately funny, sad, and insightful. Leviton was raised to be completely honest and to speak everything that was on his mind, quite differently from how most of us were raised.

What wasn’t there? Close bonding of sisters? Body-shaming? Best friends? Anxiety? Romance? Complex relationship with parents? Everything was there. Between her mom's diet-helicoptering, missing her sister, and worrying about her collegiate future, Savvy has enough to worry about. And then she meets George, the cute new kid at school who has insecurities of his own. As Savvy and George grow closer, they help each other discover how to live in the moment and enjoy the here and now before it disappears. That being said, Savvy really does love her mom & since it’s just the two of them home now, she tries her hardest to not cause friction or let her mom’s comments get to her. We follow their relationship & the very real fights that take place leading to days of silence. Maggie Ann Martin also did a A+ job of showing us Savvy’s mom & her battle with body image. I felt terrible for her mom because you know she’s a good mom but life’s curve ball really threw her off & her self esteem really took a hit. I wanted so badly to see her mom get the help she so desperately needed & be a positive role model for Savvy.

LOVE RELATIONSHIP - including extended families - are COMPLICATED! It’s amazing anyone ever stays together!

Pro: I really liked the way Martin challenged the reality weight loss industry. Those shows have created unreasonable standards and expectations for people, and it was an interesting way to explore healthy/unhealthy weight loss as well as the impossible beauty standards that exist. Hey,” Ashley said, pulling away from our hug. “I’m Ashley. This is my little sister, Savannah, and my mom.” Mom brought up a single finger, her telltale sign that you were about to get into an argument, but then she put it down. Almost like she remembered that we were here to drop off her oldest daughter for her freshman year of college and now wouldn’t be the most convenient time for a fight. Michael has come a long way from his early days, but he still has a lot of self-reflecting to do (as do most of us in any case!) Life is also about striving for self-improvement and we are never done with it.Romance is part of the story, but the story doesn’t rely on it, It mainly moved around relations and hardships of a family. The last picture was of Ashley, my dad, and me. We were in Hollywood doing a tour of Universal Studios because Ashley had just caught her movie bug. She was probably twelve, making me eleven. We posed in front of the Gilmore Girls town of Stars Hollow and we were laughing our heads off. Most likely, Dad let out a fake fart noise right before the count of three, and we lost it. On the other side of the camera I could imagine Mom’s disapproving face. Mom always refused to be in the pictures. If your family were in our place, Miriam would be pretending to love camp to make my parents comfortable. We'd all fake loving Joe [the man Leviton's mother divorced his father to be with] to make Mom happy. Everyone would be lying. Would you like that better?'

It had a lot of side plots going on, most if not all of them highly underdeveloped because there was just not enough time spent in each one of them. This made the book lose depth, and it needed it as it was touching a lot of different sensitive subjects. Pro: Grace and Savannah were a great team, and I always love a healthy and positive female friendship.

To be honest, I think Michael Leviton is an insufferable snob. I want to be as truthful as possible in this review, which I think Michael would appreciate. I’m sorry that someone taught you to hate yourself because of your body somewhere along the way, but I’m not going to let you pull me down with you."