Sweet

Sweet, by Emmy Laybourne, 272 pages

Laurel is a little overweight, but pretty comfortable with her body and happy with her life.  But since her friend, Viv, who constantly obsesses over her weight, got her a free ticket to accompany her on the Solu Cruise to Lose, she can hardly refuse.  Solu is a new sweetener that guarantees rapid weight loss results, and while Laurel is too seasick to eat, she observes that the people around her are losing weight.  But they're also acting pretty strangely- almost like addicts.  And then... then it gets scary.

I liked this- I especially thought it had a really good ending.  As I closed the book, I prayed a little pray: "Dear Emmy Laybourne, please don't do that thing that so many YA novelists do where you can't leave a book alone and you feel like you have to turn it into a trilogy when it's perfectly fine just as it is. Amen."  But just now, looking it up on Goodreads, it has "Sweet #1" in parentheses after the title, which is disheartening.  But if you're looking for a good creepy or sort-of-horror-y YA read and you don't mind some kind of gross scene descriptions, try this one.