Celeste’s life used to fit her as comfortably as her favorite outfit–track pants and a hoodie that hid her perfectly round body.  But now life is not so comfortable ever since her aunt Doreen secretly entered her in the Miss Husky Peach pageant.  What will her classmates say if she’s crowned beauty queen for fat girls?  Lively Carson certainly doesn’t need any more reason to insult Celeste.  To make matters even worse, Celeste’s best friend Sandra has become friends with Lively and only wants to be friends outside of school.  But Celeste has a plan.  She will give up chocolate cookies and lose so much weight she’ll be disqualfied from the competition.  Watch out for plans that spew (all over the gym teacher’s shoes) and crash (right in the middle of the runway). 

I loved Models Don’t Eat Chocolate by Erin Dionne.  Actually, I loved Celeste.  I loved how she changed from someone who hid behind her hoodie into someone who was unafraid to speak her mind.  I don’t know if I could have returned to the Husky Peach pageant after some of the disasters she faced–the bra bombing, the wardrobe malfunction, the peach monstrosity.  The transformation of the peach monstrosity (a bridesmaid’s dress for her cousin’s wedding) from “hated uniform to resuce outfit to The Most Treasured Item of Clothing I Will Ever Own for the Rest of My Life” was no less amazing the transformation of Celeste.