Monday, March 14, 2016

13 Ways of Looking At A Fat Girl by Mona Awad

13 Ways of Looking At A Fat Girl by Mona Awad
Published February 2016 by Penguin Publishing Group
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary:
Growing up in the suburban hell of Misery Saga (a.k.a. Mississauga), Lizzie has never liked the way she looks—even though her best friend Mel says she’s the pretty one. She starts dating guys online, but she’s afraid to send pictures, even when her skinny friend China does her makeup: she knows no one would want her if they could really see her. So she starts to lose. With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed, miles logged, pounds dropped. She fights her way into coveted dresses. She grows up and gets thin, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, her friends, her husband, her reflection in the mirror. But no matter how much she loses, will she ever see herself as anything other than a fat girl?

My Thoughts:
I'm not really sure what drew me to this book. Having struggled with body image and weight most of my life, I suppose I'm always looking for people who can poke fun at it without being mean, people who seem to really understand what it's like to go through life in a body you're never comfortable in. Somewhere in the pitch for this, I understood there would be humor. In other reviews of the book, they talk about the book being "bitingly" funny.

For me, not so much. The novel is really a series of stories in Lizzie's life. Early on, I did find some humor in some of the stories, oddly when Lizzie was at her heaviest, a time you would expect to feel most sorry for her. But thin Beth (as she later preferred to be called in her effort to redefine herself), was much more painful to read about. As she struggles to lose the weight, she finds less and less to be happy about in life. She stops taking joy in music, she loses touch with the friends who "knew her when," and her marriage suffers because nothing is more important to her than her body.

It's not just Lizzie who is heavy; her mother's weight eventually results in the health problems we're always warned about. When Lizzie's thin and her mother's gone, Lizzie spends a lot of time looking for comfort in heavy women. She also spends a lot of time judging other women and worried that others are still judging her.

Which was all just to hard for me to read. To consider the idea that I could spend the next couple of years fighting my own struggling only to still not be happy with my body, to lose the inability to enjoy food (and, dammit, I really don't want to do that!), to still feel like my weight defines me, perhaps more than ever.

This was, obviously, a tough read for me. I suppose that means Awad struck at truth; she certainly made me have all of the feelings about Lizzie.

16 comments:

  1. I wasn't thrilled about this one and looking back I'm not exactly sure why. I've always had weight issues as well and I guess I just didn't like the fact that even when she grew thin she was miserable.

    As they say when it comes to women and weight , "it's more about what's in our heads than what we see in the mirror."

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    1. I just really found it depressing, as if she were saying that once you have an issue with your weight, you can never be happy again.

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  2. I started reading this one, because I'd heard such great things about it. Have to admit that I DNFed it. I just couldn't get through it. I didn't find it funny in the least - not even bitingly. Just not my cup of tea. I can understand your connection to the book, because I've struggled with my weight for years, too (and still do). That's another part of the reason I read this book. However, I just found I couldn't engage with it so I had to put it down. Maybe I'm too sensitive. I don't know. I just didn't like this one.

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    1. Yep, I didn't get the humor. I'm glad I'm not the only one!

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  3. I've seen so many mixed reviews of this one! I think I really just need to read it and judge it for myself. Thank you for your review! I'm suspicious of anyone who doesn't have body image issues.

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    1. Heaven knows we are raised with them. I wanted to raise my daughter without them but couldn't manage it. Partly my fault, partly media's fault, partly the fault of the other girls she knew who made such a point of their weight and size at such an early age.

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  4. Wow; what a read for you and how honest you are here. Kudos to you.

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  5. I have another friend who read this and felt the same way...Not sure if this is the one for me. Great review!

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    1. I don't know anyone I think might enjoy it, to be honest.

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  6. I had an eating disorder through most of my teens into my early 20's so I can relate to the loss of joy thing because when you make food your life, the lack of it is seriously depressing. These types of books were popular with me back then because it helped to know that others felt the same way, but honestly, I'd often go off the deep end after reading about someone's life so now I am very careful when I pick up books related to diet and or food in general.

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    1. As much as I'd like to get a lot of my weight off, there's a part of me that just hates the idea of making every day all about what I'm putting in my mouth. It always seems like I'm thinking about food much more when I'm trying to lose weight than when I'm not and not in a good way!

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  7. Oh boy that one is tough to read. I would like books like these to be a little inspiring by the end. But all that loss is hard to read about.

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    1. If there'd been any point at which she found the balance between wanting to be thin and being able to eat guilt free, I think I would have enjoyed the book more.

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  8. I've struggled with my weight all my life too. I imagine this one would be a difficult read for me as well.

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    1. See, there are just so many of us that have and there's nothing funny in that as far as I can see.

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