13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

- Reviews -

Simultaneously tart and tender, "13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl" is stunning. . . . The way food and body image define Elizabeth s life is depressing and sad. But the book is neither. There is so much humor here much of it dark, but spot on, like Dolores in Wally Lamb s "She s Come Undone" or Lena Dunham in "Girls." . . .As you watch Lizzie navigate fraught relationships with food, men, girlfriends, her parents and even with herself you ll want to grab a friend and say: Whoa. This. Exactly. " ""Washington Post" Heartbreaking . . . [rife] with beauty and humor . . . As addictive as potato chips and as painful as the prospect of eating nothing but 4-ounce portions of steamed fish for the rest of your life. " Chicago Tribune" 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. " "Roxane Gay (via GoodReads) A novel in thirteen vignettes about the experience of being a woman dealing with body image issues or simply put: The experience of being a woman. . . . Even someone who has never struggled with her weight should be able to see her teenage self in Awad s pages. " "The Rumpus "Awad's sensitive, unflinching depiction of [Lizzie's struggle] is a valuable addition to the canon of American womanhood."" Time""""A collection of 13 moving portraits of Lizzie at different cross-sections in her life." ""The New York Times Book Review" ""With dark humor and heartbreaking honesty, Awad cuts away at diet culture and the pressure on women to make thinness and beauty their priority."" San Francisco Chronicle" Awad explores the sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking ways that a person s struggle with body image can seep into every part of her existence. . . ."13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl" is not really about how Lizzie March looks. . . . [it's] about how she sees herself. " Wall Street Journal" "Awad portrays Lizzie's humiliations with unflinching honesty and a dose of dark humor."" "NPR "Awad s satiric edge is on display in her debut novel."" Los Angeles Times" "It's as if the writer has eavesdropped on your most pathetic, smallest thoughts. . . .Awad's writing is heartbreaking and witty, while her prose is insightful and sharp-elbowed in its caustic edge. . . .[Lizzie is] a vulnerable, funny and fierce narrator."" The Salt Lake Tribune ""[A] mordant coming-of-age novel."" O, "The Oprah Magazine "In this dark, honest debut, Awad sharply observes . . . the struggles of growing up, growing out, and trying to slim down, at any cost."" Marie Claire""The nuance Awad adds to conceptions of weight and body image is applied also to her realizations of female friendships. Lizzie s relationships with other women are at once petty and kind, jealous and admiring."" "The Huffington Post "Blunt and funny, "13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl"is a refreshingly honest look at how society views physical appearance, how we internalize those critiques and how that affects the way we navigate the world." Mashable "Awad s writing is white hot, and deserves to be invoked alongside Gaitskill in its observation and cutting humor, its literary pleasures. It s impossible not to care for Lizzie: not a talking point, but a sweet, calculating, hurt person that is to say, a real woman, who leaves that scarequote-worthy cliche miles behind. . . . Fantastic new genre-bending fiction." "Tin House" "While many women writers are leaning toward a brand of feminism that links all women by making sweeping (and often suffocating) generalizations, Mona Awad insists on difference. . . .Lizzie Smith is not the funny fat girl we ve grown used to in literature and popular culture. She isn t a body empty of nuance, but one loaded instead with fluffy musings about what it means, in fact, to be a fat girl. . . .Awad s tight control of the narrative and the effective work that the 13 chapters accomplish makes it impossible not to understand why Lizzie is doing what she s doing." "Los Angeles Review of Books" Awad is an incredibly skilled writer, with a rare ability to construct tiny moments of both acute empathy and astonishing depth. . . . [and] a profoundly sensitive understanding of the subject matter. . . . It s impossible not to be deeply affected by [her] prose. . . . A real narrative achievement. " The Globe and Mail"(Canada) "Empathetic, engaging and bitingly funny. . . . In subject and voice, there are echoes of Margaret Atwood s"The Edible Woman"and Janice Galloway s"The Trick Is to Keep Breathing," but neither has the wit of"13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.""" The Irish Times ""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."" The Guardian" "A total must-read . . . Awad s raw and empathetic prose is alternately darkly humorous and painful to read. . . . If you re a woman living in the year 2016, you ve felt some semblance of doubt, pressure or stress about the way you look.As such, you need to read Mona Awad s fantastic new novel."" "PureWow Mona Awad writes exactly what you re thinking, and that s one of the many reasons you re going to love her debut. . . . ["13 Ways"]""announces her as a writer with real insight not only to the mind, but also to the heart. Bustle, "17 Of 2016 s Most Anticipated Books" "Funny and frank."" "Vice "As Lizzy examines the body she's never loved, our thin's-in, thigh-gap-crazy world comes into focus."" Cosmopolitan ""Throughout these often raw, poignant stories, Awad adeptly skewers the culture of fitness and dieting, a constant battle of self-denial. . . . [An]insightful debut."" BookPage""" 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. " Kirkus Reviews, " starred review Assured and terrific. " Publishers Weekly" Touching . . . Behind the title of Awad s sharp first book, a unique novel in 13 vignettes, is brazen-voiced Lizzie, who longs for, tests, and prods the deep center of the cultural promise that thinness, no matter how one achieves it, is the prerequisite for happiness. " Booklist" 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. Aimee Bender, author of "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" Hilarious and cutting . . . Mona Awad has a gift for turning the every day strange and luminous, for finding bright sparks of humor in the deepest dark. She is a strikingly original and strikingly talented new voice. Laura van den Berg, author of "Find Me" and "The Isle of Youth " "" Luminous . . . full of sharp insight and sly humor . . . It seems that Mona Awad can describe the imperfect nature of any love perfectly: whether it s love between friends, between mother and daughter, husband and wife, woman and food. Katherine Heiny, author of "Single, Carefree, Mellow" Remarkable . . . committed to the most honest and painful portrayal and comprehension of what it means to be human, with all its flaws and joys. Brian Evenson, author of "Fugue State" and "Immobility" "I loved this book!" Molly Antopol, author of "The UnAmericans""

- Author Bio -

Mona Awad received her MFA in fiction from Brown University. Her work has appeared in "McSweeney s," "The Walrus," "Joyland," "Post Road," "St. Petersburg" "Review," and many other journals. She is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing and English literature at the University of Denver."

- Full Details -

Status:	Active
ISBN-13:	9781789540826
Published:	2 Apr 2020
Published In:	United Kingdom
Imprint:	Head of Zeus
Publisher:	Head of Zeus
Format:	Paperback
Height:	198mm
Width:	129mm
Pages:	256

- Delivery ETA -

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

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