Series Info:
Book 1: Size 12 is Not Fat (2006)
Book 2: Size 14 is Not Fat Either (2006)
Book 3: Big Boned (2007)
Book 4: Size 12 and Ready to Rock (2012)
Book 5: The Bride Wore Size 12 (2013)
Author: Meg Cabot
ISBNs: 9780060525118, 9780060525125, 9780060525132, 978-0061734786, 978-0061734793
Plot Summary of Book 1 (From Goodreads)
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 . . .
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 . . .
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| Author Meg Cabot |
My senior year of high school, I was on my school’s newspaper staff for a semester. I quit after the first semester because I got upset that the advisor seemed to dislike my “book reviews” section idea because the books I was recommending weren’t new.
Like, excuse me, I’m a senior with multiple AP courses, I do not have enough time to read and recommend 5 books that are NEW.
But now, Jeselyn’s letting me write a blog entry for her and I CAN REVIEW WHAT I WANT. SUCK IT, DALTON.
I mean...I’m not bitter about something that happened over ten years ago. Nuh-uh.
ANYWAY. I have been a longtime lover of Meg Cabot since I started reading the Princess Diaries some time in middle school. I’ve read the majority of her work (I think there’s one teen series I just wasn’t interested in, and that’s not her fault). Recently, I decided to revisit one of Cabot’s other series, the Heather Wells Mysteries. The main plot of each book is basically: “Twentysomething former pop sensation Heather Wells is now making her way in the world by working as assistant director at a residence hall and living anonymously with her ex-boyfriend’s private detective brother in New York City when *gasp* a murder happens in the dorm building!”
The rest basically goes the way you would expect a book in this vein to go: lots of accidental stumbling on clues, risky choices, and eventually solving the murder without the help of the police, much to their chagrin.
Unlike most other mystery series (in my opinion), the Heather Wells Mysteries are *FUN.* Like, obviously the murdery bits are fairly gristly, but Heather, like most of Meg Cabot’s heroines, is funny, smart, and snarky. Because the books are written in the first person, we get so much of her internal life, where she worries about the things you’d expect a regular twentysomething to worry about: boyfriends, ex boyfriends, the fleeting fame, your hot roommate, vanity sizing, donuts, beautiful sugary coffee concoctions...you get the picture. Additionally, The supporting cast of characters are diverse, hilarious, and genuine. My favorite (besides aforementioned hot roommate--Meg Cabot is just real good at making sexy love interests) is Magda, the sassy Dominican cafeteria attendant with amazing airbrushed nails. She adores the students that live in the residence hall, and provides a lot of the funniest lines in the books.
Also, even though I’ve read these books multiple times (well, ok...I think I’ve only read the fourth one once), the murderers were complete surprises until pretty close to the end. So that’s pretty cool.
The one criticism I have about the books after this reread is that, because Meg Cabot is a really heavy pop-culture referencer, it’s easy to tell that the books were written several years apart, even though they only cover the span of about a year. They also might end up seeming kind of dated because of that, even though they were written between 2006 and 2012. Hey, you young kids can get an education about late augts-early teens pop culture the same way i got my eighties and nineties pop culture education: reading books with lots of references.
But, look. These aren’t books you’re going to read for learning or anything (although if you’re a writer, you could totally learn from her character building). They definitely fall in the “Brain Candy” category of literature. If you’re looking for a book to laugh your ass off too, then “aw” over, and feel like you’re helping to solve a murder, I 100 percent recommend this series.
