A Satanic Conspiracy of Skinny

This novel would be downright silly, if it weren’t so darned sweet. The premise of The Program is that Satan has launched a miraculous weight-loss program designed to ensnare the souls of millions of sad women who have been brainwashed into believing that curves mean fat, and fat means unsexy and unloveable. And so Lovett takes on the obsession with weight that dominates the world’s media,  entertainment industry, fashion industry, and bedrooms around the globe, and presents us with a different reality, one in which men express their preference for “voluptuous,” “Rubenesque” and “zaftig” women instead of the flat-chested, concave-bellied, and stick-legged boy figures we are told are the epitome of female beauty today.

As one of those “Rubenesque” figures Lovett treats so lovingly in his novel, I could certainly relate to the main conceit of the book, even without the Satanic transformations and heavenly miracles. And the characters fighting this Satanic plot are a delightful bunch—from the homeless young David who had resisted Satan’s temptation to the miracle priest with the heart of gold to the chubby intrepid journalist Karen who drives the story and is the most lovingly depicted character of all.

Lovett also gives us enough action, gore, courtroom drama, romance and sex to spice up his plot and make it a fun read even while getting his viewpoint across that curvaceous female flesh is beautiful and women should start loving themselves again. I have to give Lovett 5 stars just for being a male author prepared to go to bat for the millions of self-flaggellating women out there who have succumbed to the conspiracy of skinny.

My biggest gripe with the book is that I think he is much too generous in his opinion of men—the majority of male characters in his book seem to have escaped the satanic brainwashing to which their female counterparts have been subjected, and are all too ready to fall head over heels for the numerous over-endowed female characters that people the book. If only it were true that men were that resistant to the sylph-like image of feminine beauty portrayed by Hollywood, the media and elsewhere, but alas, in real life, the majority of men are equally as susceptible to The Program’s lie of “the perfect woman” as the distaff side. Perhaps Lovett’s book will help wake some women–and men–up to their true beauty, but I’m not holding my breath.