Dietland by Sarai
Walker
Plum, real name
Alicia, has always been large. She had
tried numerous diets, including ones that require the buying of cardboard
tasting food and paste flavored shakes, but none seem to work. She buys clothes in a much smaller size
knowing that one day, after her soon to be performed weight loss surgery, she
will be able to wear. It seems her whole
life is on hold waiting for the day she is skinny. Then she meets the ladies of Calliope House
and her life, everything she thought she knew about herself, will be turned
upside down.
This book was
classified as “humorous fiction” in almost every source I looked at. It is not.
Or at least I didn’t think it was.
A book with a hand grenade/cupcake hybrid on the cover should be laugh
out loud funny but while light in tone it is quite serious. It is more than a book encouraging women to
be happy with their bodies and forgo painful dieting and surgeries. Serious issues like the objectification of the
female body and the inequality between the sexes are addressed. People die, women become terrorists, this is
not a light chick lit book, but a cynical look at one way, one very violent
way, the battle of the sexes could even out a bit.
