SPOILER ALERT!
Now doesn't that just sound creepy? A body institute. No less scary than learning that there are things such as Loaners and Reducers. Reducers who have their souls brainmapped into the Loaner's body and their job is to help them lose weight. The Loaner's soul is also brainmapped and held in a computerized system until their body has reached it's goal weight while the Reducer's body is left in an extended animation form. Morgan Dey is a Reducer and has just finished helping Shelby Johnson lose her intended fifty pounds in three months. Due to her family's financial situation she takes up the opportunity to help another Loaner lose weight and because she's such a promising young candidate for the program she's been given a challenge, to help Jodine Kowalczyks lose a hundred pounds in six months.
In six months time Morgan Dey will be in her own body again, able to help her parent's pay off her gramma's funeral costs and their debt while also able to put money away for tech school. In this high tech, futuristic world however, things are not always as they appear. There's the WHA, a group of concerned citizens outraged with the Body Institute's program and it's 'body-snatching' abilities who quickly escalate things to a violent nature. When the WHA's violence effects Morgan and Jodine, it's Morgan's duty to stop at nothing to not only try and stop them, but find out the truth of why Leo, the Body Institute's director in her city, has let things escalate to this level.
Despite still being in my usual read category, this was a bit of a different read for me. Futuristic, techy world with a pretty realistic topic of discussion, obesity. In this world obesity has grown so vast that the national Health Care Program was almost crippled and only due to the government's involvement were they able to slowly correct the problem. The book shows a racism not in the color of one's skin or in one's gender, but in how much someone weighs and the prejudices that go along with that. For someone who's familiar with that topic on my own, I could relate to the book in a different way and speaking on the subject helps enlighten it to others as well.
