A review by caribbeangirlreading
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 
Review – Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado 
 
“They say you can’t really be with someone until you can love yourself, but I’m learning that it can also sometimes take the admiration and support of someone else to help you get there. I was already on the path to seeing my own self-worth, but . . . took my hand and made the route less lonely.” 
 
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega is a charming and heartfelt coming-of-age tale about a brown, plus-sized Puerto Rican girl growing up in Connecticut. The book tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves. 
 
LIKED 
 
*Cast of characters – I really liked Charlie, Amelia, and Brian. Teenaged me would have totally been friends with them. 
 
*Charlie got her HEA! 
 
*Cover – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 
 
DISLIKED 
 
*Way too much telling when showing would have been more than enough. Young (and not so young readers) are smarter than that. 
 
*Themes were presented but not properly (or superficially) explored, specifically Charlie’s relationship with her mom and Charlie’s latinidad. 
 
*The author wanted so badly to make Charlie a woke brown girl that she was THIS CLOSE to preachiness. 
 
IT’S COMPLICATED 
 
*Narration – I loved that the book was narrated from a first person pov by Charlie. You truly got to feel her joy, her pain, her insecurities. Unfortunately, too many times Charlie would be in the middle of doing/being, the book would stop cold, and Charlie would become the third-person narrator. It made for clunky reading. 
 
*Making Charlie's mom (the only Anglo/white character in the story) the "bad guy” was lazy writing on the part of the author. Making Charlie's mom a skinny, white-passing Latina would have made for a much more complex and nuanced story. 
 
This book was lovely. I love today’s young readers get to see themselves reflected in the pages of a book. But I also think that young readers reading diverse stories deserve better writing and editing, not just woke stories. 
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