13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl: Fiction

Of Mona Awad's three novels, this is the last one I read. Bunny is a more entertaining than any show or movie or game there has ever been, and All's Well is a masterpiece of literature. Needless to say, I was excited to read this.I'll start by saying that it's not bad. But unlike in her other novels, this one is really more of a hit or miss than a nonstop pummeling. Still, when she hits, it's great. But I really don't care for the open-ended ending.Maybe the best I can say is that I don't regret reading it, and I will read every other book that this author publishes until one of us dies.

Having been fat the first 33 years of my life (and having spent the next 20 fighting to never be fat again) so many parts if Lizzy-Liz-Beth-Elizabeth’s story rang true to me. The internal insatiable hunger, the obsession with food and exercise, the pressure of society, the way people treat you differently, depending on the number the scale says. The most brilliant chapter is the one about shopping in the Canadian equivalent of Layne Bryant. No grown women should have to settle for a t-shirt with a rhinestone cat playing with yarn embroidered on it just because it’s the least of the evils!!

Sure, this book is dark and sometimes disturbing, but it's unflinchingly honest and also incredibly well-wrought. The voice of Elizabeth/Beth/Lizzie/Liz is so addictive to read that I devoured this in one sitting, which is a rare thing for me. Awad is clearly a skilled writer, and I can't wait to see what she does next. I feel like the fact that this book has garnered so many varied reviews here on Amazon is a testament to its power. This is a book that tricks you into thinking about some tough issues while being entertained, which to me is the mark of a fabulous book.

I found Elizabeth immensely unlikable. I also found the story layout and the pace of the story confusing and just kind of boring. Several times during the reading of this book I would find myself skipping passages and having to decide to keep on reading. I did finish it and it was with a "what just happened here" thought and sort of relief. Don't waste your money. Also, did give it 2 stars since I was able to finish it.....my can't finish get one star.

Hoping to gain some helpful insights about what heavier women experience, I recommended this book to my book club. I should have skimmed it first. The positives: I was surprised to read how a formerly fat girl had as many self image issues when she became thin, the book was short. The negatives: I had to hide the book from my teen daughters- the sex references are negative and show insanely bad judgement, and the writing is terrible. Don't waste your time.

It's well written and insightful, but difficult to read. It's a series of sad and painful glimpses into a woman's life at various points over about 10 years, and how her entire being is consumed by an obsession with being fat, even after she's no longer fat. Throughout the book, I just really wanted her to go to a good psychologist and work through some of her issues so that she could make the choices that would help her be happy.

I would love to love this book. It's well - written with characters that come off the page, yet something was strangely missing at the end. The plot flows easily, and multiple life themes get explored but none seem to be fully developed. This may be intentional so the reader can identify with the same themes in their own lives, but it felt as though this book was originally 50% longer and the editors made the author cut some pages. Perhaps if one of the relationships had been eliminated and the others further explored, I might have been less frustrated.Caveat to those with no eating disorders: the plot uses the heroine's food issues as the entry to the rest of her life. I liked that construct, but if you don't want to go down that path with her, you probably want to pass.

I believed the author when she said, "The only way to tell the truth is to write it in fiction." She did not let me down: I lived this life, and her portrayal was brutally honest and spot on. Fat shaming is the last permissible form of public bigotry. In this country we moralize weight: lazy, stupid, and dirty - and let's be honest, repulsive. So the only way to make this story palatable for the scores of readers who actually were the horrible girls and women in this book is to make it inspiration porn - for Elizabeth to "grow" and "overcome" her mother's abhorrent treatment and emotional abandonment and the scores of adults and brittle friends who failed to intervene on her behalf. I was lucky enough find alcohol and drugs to help me process this life, and luckier still to get clean in my 20's. It's also so interesting to read the reviews where Elizabeth was indeed moralized and villainized ostensibly for making "bad choices" but female leads do this all the time and as long as they're pretty and usually white, we root for them. Case in point: the ridiculously popular, Jessica Jones. I found Elizabeth to be unflinching, self-abdicating (which is how you survive this life), and tenacious. I loved her and was sorry to read the last page. Awad wrote a magnificent book.

Read the book and thought my daughter in law would appreciate it. I found some chapters very poignant but some unnecessarily somewhat crudein fact this was a selection at a book club I go to and it offended some members. It may be a generation thing!.

Interesting story

Compré este libro porque fue altamente recomendado por varios profesores de diferentes colegios. No obstante, al empezar a leerlo para poder llevarlo al salón de clases me di cuenta que era un libro que en vez de empoderar a las chicas, hacia todo lo contrario. La decisión de removerlo de la lista de lectura, fue basado en la manera en que la escritora expone a las chicas con sobrepeso, dejándolas como seres humanos que prefieren vivir una vida llena de rencor y que no hacen nada por mejorarse. No sé si Mona Awad sufrió de sobrepeso en algún punto de su vida, y terminó siendo ese personaje depresivo y amargado que aquí muesta; o si jamás se sentó a hablar con una chica con sobrepeso para saber cómo era su vida, y sin embargo, decidió exponer bajo lo que ella creía era vivir con soprepeso, que por cierto parece ser que odia a estas personas. Es decir, la representación del sobrepeso y el impacto que tiene en la vida social y personal de la persona es expuesto aquí como algo desalentador y vergonzoso, y que está enraizado en la psyche y que por más que la persona llegue a cumplir los estándares de bellezas impuestos por la sociedad, y se vea bien por fuera; por dentro siempre será la "persona gorda", o fea, y por lo tanto su actitud hacia la vida también lo será. Por otro lado el contenido sexual dentro de este libro es demasiado para varias, aunque no todas, las estudiantes de secundaria/preparatioria. No obstante, esta no fue la razón principal para removerlo de la lista de lectura.Este libro es perfecto para toda aquella persona que busque lecturas desalentadoras que hablen del sobrepreso, el odio hacia uno mismo y el odio a las personas "naturalmente" delgadas. Para quien busque mejores cosas, el libro debería de ser ignorado.

read and enjoyed

A collection of vignettes seemingly in chronological order of a former fat girl and the ways she sees herself and how others do too.At first, this felt like I was reading short stories and I had to check that it was indeed a novel. It does quickly come together and the chapters feel more like a story without the segues in normal writing. I was (am?) a fat girl and related to the feelings Lizzie experiences. Once fat it is hard to stop thinking that, even once one is "normal" weight. This was a tough read at times with the raw truth staring at you on the page. The book is lightened by humour and while you often want to yell at her for her choices other times you want to hug her. Awad's first book is brilliant and shows the beginnings of what she has accomplished to date. I've now read all of Awad's books and await the next.