Just a Few inches tells the story of eighteen-year-old Carrie Roberts, a high school cheerleader. She finds what she thinks is the perfect dress for the upcoming Valentine's Dance and purchases it just before her rival Janelle can. But the dress is too tight, so Cattie starts exercising and dieting to fit into the garment. When that fails, she purchases diet pills she saw advertised on TV and takes a much higher dose than she should have. She fits into the dress and spites Janelle. But then Carrie discovers she is shrinking in height, even though she's stopped taking the pills. And there seems to be no stopping it.
The plot of this story is novel but not unheard-of: tales of shrinking have been around for centuries, and even the old "Sabrina The Animated Series" had a tale in which the title character uses magic to shrink herself into designer jeans to impress a boyfriend only to discover the soell keeps shrinking her. But this book rises above the level of silly cartoons and children's stories for a number of reasons.
First of all, Tara St. Pierre takes the one element of fantasy, Carrie's shrinking, and makes a believable Young Adult novel from it without turning the whole story into a fantasy. Science may tell us that a person cannot shrink the Carrie does in this story. (Science also tells us that neither the butterfly nor the bumblebee should be able to fly, so take that with a grain of salt.) But the story and its elements, including the reactions and life changes of Carrie's family and friends are entirely realistic and true-to-life. The novel never loses sight of the fact that its focus is "Young Adult".
Secondly, the book touches on very real life issues such as self-esteem, body image, and the way society and the media influence our concept of these. At the beginning of the book, Carrie is on the tall side, athletic, and not at all overweight. As she shrinks, she is forced to confront just why she felt she had to lose weight in the first place. She sees how so many people in her life - her classmates, her sisters, people she encounters online - also have body image issues, and she comes to realize that our bodies do not define us, that our bodies are our bodies and it's what's inside us that matters.
The theme of self acceptance versus body shaming recurs throughout Just a Few Inches. As she gets smaller, Carrie realizess how the media, society, peers and even her own words and attitudes convey messages such as "not good enough", "not thin enough", and "not pretty enough", to the people around her (as well as to herself). And more importantly, that it doesn't have to be that way.
Then thirdly, Ms. St. Pierre gives us a story with real people in it, not stock characters or caricatures. We see how Carrie's shrinking affects her family, her friends, her classmates, and her school. We feel their concern, their fear for the well-being of Carrie, and their hope that this terrible thing will be resolved. Even Janelle - at first shown as a snooty, spoiled, "it's all about me" sort - opens up and allows Carrie to see a softer side, and also reveals a little of why she acts the way she does.
But perhaps most important of all is the degree to which Carrie Roberts grows as a person even as her body gets tinier and tinier. She learns the value of family and friends, of loyalty and compassion, and that the true worth of a person is not defined by how tall they are or how great they look.
Stephen King once wrote, “Fantasy fiction is essentially about the concept of power; great fantasy fiction is about people who find it at great cost or lose it tragically..." Carrie Roberts loses her height, her weight and her physical strength in the course of the story... but then finds an even greater power within herself. Nowhere is this shown better than at the climax at the end of the book, where she is at her very tiniest and must face a challenge that would intimidate anyone regardless of size or strength. And in spite of her miniscule size, Carrie rises to the occasion, standing up to her foe on her own, winning the admiration of her family, her friends, and the reader, in showing that the true measure of a person cannot be dictated by a scale, a tape measure, or a mark on a wall.
Just a Few Inches is a book that is for everyone, not just fans of fantasy or science fiction and not just for fans of the shrinking genre. It is an enjoyable, compelling novel that delivers a message of hope and inspiration.
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