Eric must uncover the terrible secret she's hiding, before its dark currents pull them both under.According to Crutcher's website, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes has been in the process of being adapted as a major motion picture since at least 2010.

[4] Eric “Moby” Calhoune's best friend Sarah Byrnes is catatonic, sitting in the mental ward of Sacred Heart Hospital.

They were picked on regularly and began to write an underground newspaper called Crispy Pork Rinds, focusing an article on the bully Dale Thornton.

Shortly after being confronted with this information, Sarah Byrnes begins speaking to Eric, and he discovers that her catatonia has been a ruse, and that she is terrified that her father, whose abuse has been worsening, is going to kill her.

Ms. Lemry teaches the Contemporary American Thought class, which includes discussions on abortion, suicide, religion, body image, social justice, and many other topics.

While they are gone, Virgil Byrnes hunts down Eric after school and threatens to kill him, and eventually stabs him in the back and cheek.

He earned the nickname "Moby" because he has an extreme lung capacity; however, loses weight later on after joining the swim team.

Eric is recruited by the swim coach, begins to lose weight, and fears that Sarah Byrnes will not remain friends with him if he is no longer fat.

Sarah Byrnes: Extreme facial and hand scarring result in her being a social outcast, and she has a somewhat bitter outlook on life.

Dale Thornton: A bully who ends up befriending Eric Calhoune and Sarah Byrnes because of his somewhat outcast status as someone who struggled in school and eventually dropped out.

Ellerby is the most self-actualized, Eric is in the process, but Mark's rigid home life leads him to be easily goaded and often has his beliefs called into question.

Ms. Cynthia Ellen Lemry: She is the swim team coach and teacher of the controversial class Contemporary American Thought.

Sarah Byrnes and Eric Calhoune both have physical issues that cause people to see them differently, but they also see themselves negatively; by the end of the text, this view is proved to be erroneous.