Fat, a Love Story

Wersba's sometimes skewed, always funny view of the outrages of adolescence usually centers on odd people who love one another, however briefly, and then part. But happy endings abound in this novel, about obese Rita Formica's hopeless love for Robert Swann. When Rita first sees Robert, she is a messenger for Arnold Bromberg's fledgling cheesecake company in Sag Harbor. She joins Robert's fitness club just to see him but loses him to her own best friend. She survives, though, and finds real romance with a person most readers will have adored from his first appearance in the book. Two gentle, wonderfully human souls fall in love, without (or in spite of) weight loss, after trodding a path strewn with heartbreak and humor. Ages 12-up. (July)