This book was super cute and sort of made me feel like I was on the verge of tears the entire time? Part of that was PMS, sure, but another big part of that is that reading this sort of felt like someone was poking me right in the center of my cold, dead heart. Which is uncomfortable. Willowdean is a fat (she doesn’t say overweight, she doesn’t see anything wrong with describing herself as fat) teenager living in a small Texas town as obsessed […]
“I hate seeing fat girls on TV or in movies, because the only way the world seems to be okay with putting a fat person on camera is if they’re miserable with themselves or if they’re the jolly best friend. Well, I’m neither of those things. ..”
I liked the message behind Dumplin’ a lot. It’s great to see a body positive YA protagonist with sass. I also have a weird obsession with beauty pageants. It seems like this should have been the perfect book for me…but it fell a bit short. The pageant really isn’t a huge part of the story. It’s more about relationships: Will and her mother, Will and her coworker/kinda boyfriend Bo, Will and best friend Ellen. The story isn’t bad by any means, but I really wanted […]
Happy, Beautiful, AND Fat
This was one of my must reads for 2015. Willowdean Dickson (self-identifying fat girl) is a Texan teenager with a beauty queen for a mother. Over the summer she falls in love with a coworker named Bo aka Peachbutt. Events conspire and she decides to sign up for the Miss Teen Blue Bell pageant her mother runs, even though she’s not the typical beauty queen contestant. With her best friend, Ellen, by her side, she navigates the tricky terrain of adolescence. I had great expectations […]