My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters

My Big Nose (and Other Natural Disasters) by Sydney Salter

In this debut novel, Jory has a nose comparable to those on Mount Rushmore and an inferiority complex to match. Determined to change her face (and therefore her life), she gets a summer job to pay for a nose job. Yet through a crazy series of events-- finding love, losing it, finding it, making friends, losing friends, discovering jewelry-- Jory has to rethink her life and what the problems in it really are.

The book was cute. There were many positive messages about body image and relationships, which I appreciated and thought were cool. Gideon was absolutely droll and you just wanted to snatch him right out of the book. Jory's incessant self-centeredness, though, was annoying for the first three-quarters. I had the feeling that if Jory was real, I wouldn't be friends with her, and that made reading her story harder. From a writing perspective, Salter had a decently developed point of view and there were few signs of the self-aware style of new writers in the book.

Overall: good beach read with positive messages.