Drew Durham, co-manager at Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, Calif., talks up Future Perfect by Jen Larsen, a debut YA novel that he is eager to share with his customers.

Jen Larsen’s first book, entitled Stranger Here, about her own struggles with weight, was the perfect “reader’s appetizer” for this young adult novel, Future Perfect. Future Perfect gives us a painful but authentic taste of what life might be like for obese teenagers, especially girls, in the 21st century.

In Future Perfect, the first-person narrator of the novel, Ashley Perkins, is acutely aware of how people view her obesity as unhealthy and disgusting. Thankfully she disagrees. She knows she is beautiful just the way she is; why can’t anyone else see her as she sees herself? To test her self-love, the plot brings ever-increasing pressures to change her weight, including a manipulative grandmother’s wish for Ashley to have weight-loss surgery in exchange for full tuition to Harvard. This book describes the everyday dynamics that obese young people have to live with today.

Ashley’s story is one of anguish, empowerment, and eventual liberation. It is told through real struggles as well as jarring and toxic social scenes, including the moment in which, much to her mortification, Ashley is given her grandmother’s “offer” at Ashley’s birthday. Future Perfect is the story of misadventures and changes of all kinds – a veritable recipe for teenage angst. Ashley’s authentically real story is a body-image-conscious coming-of-age story that will leave readers hungry for more.

Future Perfect by Jen Larsen. HarperTeen, $17.99 Oct. ISBN 978-0-06-232123-7