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Start gifting13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
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Learn moreA darkly funny, deeply resonant, and exquisitely written literary debut, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is the story of one woman’s journey from fat adolescence to an ex-fat adulthood, as she seeks love and acceptance from everyone except herself.
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 weight. 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?
In her brilliant, hilarious, and at times shocking debut, Mona Awad simultaneously skewers the body image–obsessed culture that tells women they have no value outside their physical appearance, and delivers a tender and moving depiction of a lovably difficult young woman whose life is hijacked by her struggle to conform. As caustically funny as it is heartbreaking, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl introduces a vital new voice in fiction.
Mona Awad is the author of the novels Bunny and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the Colorado Book Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and an Honorable Mention from the Arab American Book Awards. She earned an MFA degree in fiction from Brown University and a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Denver. She has published work in Time, VICE, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.
Jorjeana Marie has worked extensively as an actress, comedian, writer, and audiobook narrator. Her narrations have earned her several Earphones Awards. She has performed in hundreds of commercials and starred in the pilot Listen to Grandpa, Andy Ling with Elliott Gould. She is a stand-up comic who has opened for Richard Lewis, Louie Anderson, and Kathleen Madigan. Her video game credits include Final Fantasy, Crackdown 2, and Star Guardians. She loves reading so much it gets her into trouble.
Reviews
“Gutting…Awad gets everything right and, throughout these interconnected stories, reveals how absurd our culture is about women and their bodies. Several sections had me in tears…I highly recommend this one.”
“This book sparkles with wit and at the same time comes across as so transparent and genuine—Awad knows how to talk about the raw struggles of female friendships, sex, contact, humanness, and her voice is a wry celebration of all of this at once.”
“Awad’s sensitive, unflinching depiction of [Lizzie’s struggle] is a valuable addition to the canon of American womanhood.”
“A hilarious, heartbreaking book.”
“[A] mordant coming-of-age novel.”
“Honest, searing, and necessary.”
“You’ll want to grab a friend and say: ‘Whoa. This. Exactly.’”
“With dark humor and heartbreaking honesty, Awad cuts away at diet culture and the pressure on women to make thinness and beauty their priority.”
“Absorbing…Subtle but poignant…This sort of intrafeminine aggression will be familiar to most women, whatever side of the body war they’ve been on. But it is is a side of experience that hasn’t been much explored by literary novelists.”
“A painfully raw—and bitingly funny—debut…[Lizzie] gets under your skin, and she stays there. Beautifully constructed; a devastating novel but also a deeply empathetic one.”
“Assured and terrific.”
“Hilarious and cutting…Mona Awad has a gift for turning the everyday strange and luminous, for finding bright sparks of humor in the deepest dark. She is a strikingly original and strikingly talented new voice.”
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