Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot (Heather Wells #1)
Published: 2005
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
E-book, English edition, 345 pages

Blurb:

Heather Wells Rocks!

Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two — and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather's perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York's top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather's residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen — not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives — even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective!

But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly ex-pop star who's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong . . .

Ulasan:

Kalau melihat judulnya, aku membayangkan ceritanya bertipe metropop-chicklit dengan tokoh utama perempuan dewasa yang bekerja di bidang fashion. Ternyata aku salah.

Bagian tokoh utama perempuan dewasa memang benar. Setting cerita di New York yang mengindikasikan tipe metropop juga sepertinya benar. Tapi tokoh utama tidak bekerja di bidang fashion.

Si tokoh utama, Heather Wells, adalah mantan selebritis. Penyanyi tepatnya. Tapi ia tidak meneruskan karirnya. Ia bekerja sebagai asisten direktur asrama mahasiswa. Ia menyewa kamar di rumah milik kakak laki-laki mantan pacarnya, Cooper, yang bekerja sebagai detektif swasta. Ia mengaku sudah move on dari mantannya yang juga selebritis, Jordan. Dan ia menjalani hidupnya sehari-hari seperti warga New York biasa.

Jadi kupikir mungkin ceritanya akan berkisar seputar romance. Bayangkan ketika ternyata ada kematian di dalamnya. Kupikir itu hanya candaan atau ungkapan. Tapi memang ada kematian. Mungkin ini yang dinamakan cozy mystery, kali ya? Kasusnya yaitu: seorang mahasiswi ditemukan tewas di dalam—dan jatuh dari—lift.

Semua orang berpikir—dan polisi juga memutuskan—bahwa kejadian itu adalah kecelakaan. Tapi mahasiswi atau perempuan tidak bermain lompat lift—atau elevator jumping—seperti yang dilakukan mahasiswa bandel. Hal itu mengusik Heather.

Tokoh utama memang bukan penegak hukum atau detektif, tapi adanya kasus kriminal di dalamnya membuat ceritanya terbilang seru. Aku hanya harus bersabar membaca tulisan yang melompat-lompat dan pemikiran si tokoh yang random (tapi kadang bikin ngikik) untuk menyelesaikan ceritanya.

Heather memang dramatis orangnya, bisa dibilang drama queen, dalam pemikirannya. Tindakannya sangat berbeda dengan yang dipikirkan. Heather orangnya praktis, ceplas-ceplos, tapi super ceroboh. Kadang ia bertindak tanpa berpikir panjang, jadi bikin gemes. Dan komentarnya tentang cewek dan penampilan seringkali bikin ngikik.

Ceritanya ternyata cukup seru. Pemecahan kasusnya menarik untuk diikuti. Karena sudut pandang utamanya adalah Heather, dan pembaca mengikuti narasinya, pembaca juga jadi mengikuti keseharian Heather. Lingkungannya, orang-orang yang dekat dengannya, kebiasaannya, dan sebagainya.

Penyelesaiannya… hmm… agak terlalu dramatis juga. Tapi… hmm… yah, okelah. Paling tidak seluruh kejadian dalam cerita ini menjadikan hidup Heather tidak biasa-biasa saja, walaupun ia hanya salah satu warga biasa di New York.


View all my reviews

Tentang penulis:

Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot was born on February 1, 1967, during the Chinese astrological year of the Fire Horse, a notoriously unlucky sign. Fortunately she grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, where few people were aware of the stigma of being a fire horse -- at least until Meg became a teenager, when she flunked freshman Algebra twice, then decided to cut her own bangs. After six years as an undergrad at Indiana University, Meg moved to New York City (in the middle of a sanitation worker strike) to pursue a career as an illustrator, at which she failed miserably, forcing her to turn to her favorite hobby--writing novels--for emotional succor. She worked various jobs to pay the rent, including a decade-long stint as the assistant manager of a 700 bed freshmen dormitory at NYU, a position she still occasionally misses.

She is now the author of nearly fifty books for both adults and teens, selling fifteen million copies worldwide, many of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, most notably The Princess Diaries series, which is currently being published in over 38 countries, and was made into two hit movies by Disney. In addition, Meg wrote the Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You? series (on which the television series, Missing, was based), two All-American Girl books, Teen Idol, Avalon High, How to Be Popular, Pants on Fire, Jinx, a series of novels written entirely in email format (Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, and Every Boy's Got One), a mystery series (Size 12 Is Not Fat/ Size 14 Is Not Fat Either/Big Boned), and a chick-lit series called Queen of Babble.

Meg is now writing a new children's series called Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls. Her new paranormal series, Abandon, debuts in Summer of 2011.

Meg currently divides her time between Key West, Indiana, and New York City with a primary cat (one-eyed Henrietta), various back-up cats, and her husband, who doesn't know he married a fire horse. Please don't tell him.