Leslea Newman Fat Chance

Judi Leibowitz is miserable because she thinks she’s really, really fat in this contemporary high school book. At thirteen, she’s 5’4″ and 127 pounds, when Seventeen Magazine says she should be 120 pounds. No wonder her life sucks and she doesn’t have a boyfriend. If only she could look like Nancy Pratt, all skinny and tan and blonde. Everyone knows that guys only like skinny girls.

Judi’s English teacher, Mrs. Roth, hands out notebooks to her students and asks them to keep a journal all semester. Mrs. Roth is smart and nice, but she is VERY FAT. Judi wonders who ever wanted to marry her; she doesn’t even follow Seventeen magazine’s advice for fat girls, like wearing dark clothes.

Each chapter is an entry in Judi’s diary as she thinks about what kind of career she’d like to have, tries to get dreamy Richard Weiss to notice her, and most of all, struggles to stick to a diet. No matter how hard she tries, she ends up overeating and doesn’t lose weight.

But then he discovers skinny Nancy Pratt’s secret to staying skinny. Judi overhears her throwing up in the school bathroom and they end up talking. At first, when Nancy explains how she makes herself throw up, Judi thinks she’s gross. However, a few days later, when Judi’s mother insists that he eat the entire dinner, she decides to try Nancy’s trick. Now she has a secret weapon.

But the secret weapon turns out to be a two-edged sword.

This book for high school students is an entertaining and candid look at a serious topic. Judi’s voice is authentic and girls will easily identify with her. The diary format (usually not one of my favorites) works really well here, showing readers some of the dangers of bulimia.

When I was reading this book, I felt like it could have been my diary (except for the vomiting) and not just at thirteen. We live in a society where the loudest voices (cinema, television, magazines) tell girls and women that our only value is our appearance and that we must be ultra-thin. An online article, citing several studies, states that the number one wish of girls ages 11 to 17 is to be thinner, and girls as young as five have expressed fears of gaining weight.

The author, Leslea Newman, has struggled with body image issues and edited a collection of women’s writing on food called “Eating Our Hearts Out.” She was inspired to write “Fat Chance” after reading about a girl who had died and left behind a diary full of her misery about food and weight.

Reading level: From 10 years. A must read!