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A review by batmads
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado
5.0
**Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss who provided me with an ARC in exchange for a review**
First of all: I LOVED THIS BOOK.
Second of all: Did I mention that I loved this book? Like, everything about it was just *chef's kiss* pure perfection.
The voice is PERFECT, and I say that because I absolutely, 100% talk like Charlie Vega, so I know what's up. The plot is authentic and real and totally dragged me in. I've had conflict like Charlie and Amelia have in this book in high school. Seriously. My friend group literally dropped a girl because someone got salty about how much time she spent with her boyfriend. But I've also had their pep talks and their love and their validation and it was just. so. well. done. It blew my mind both how much I could relate to this book and how much of it was fresh and original and unlike anything I had experienced before.
But even beyond the dynamics of voice and character and conflict in this book is the sheer skill with which deeper themes are handled. That's how I know this book is amazing, because you can have a great story (which Fat Chance, Charlie Vega does), but if the themes are lacking, I'll forget about it in a week. For this one though! AHHHHHH.
I knew fatphobia was a thing. I battle it in myself on a regular basis, because I, a skinny girl, have been told enough shit about my own body that I've internalized over the years that I know I have a load of implicit bias again fat people. I didn't realize how prevalent it was until I read Fat Chance. Suddenly, it was popping out at me everywhere. How people in my family would describe people they didn't like as being overweight. How trump supporters are depicted as being heavier than liberals in political cartoons. How everywhere, weight is linked with being wrong, somehow. And Charlie, who is fat, has seen and has been told this message so often that it colors everything in her life.
The synopsis here tries to sell the plot as Charlie working out her relationship with Brian after this bombshell that he liked skinny Amelia first for the entire book. That is not how this story goes. In reality, this story is Charlie working to dismantle her own internalized bias around her own weight and ethnic heritage after every bad message she's ever been handed by the world about her body, her beauty, and her worth are reinforced by one, super sucky guy. It's about balancing her relationship with her best friend with her relationship with her boyfriend, because once you find a new source of love and validation, it's hard to let it go. It's about working on her relationship with her mother, who's succumbed to all the subtle fatphobia she's experienced in the world. (Charlie's mother, by the way, while a massive pain in the ass who definitely goes too far on more than one occasion, is also a fascinating character
First of all: I LOVED THIS BOOK.
Second of all: Did I mention that I loved this book? Like, everything about it was just *chef's kiss* pure perfection.
The voice is PERFECT, and I say that because I absolutely, 100% talk like Charlie Vega, so I know what's up. The plot is authentic and real and totally dragged me in. I've had conflict like Charlie and Amelia have in this book in high school. Seriously. My friend group literally dropped a girl because someone got salty about how much time she spent with her boyfriend. But I've also had their pep talks and their love and their validation and it was just. so. well. done. It blew my mind both how much I could relate to this book and how much of it was fresh and original and unlike anything I had experienced before.
But even beyond the dynamics of voice and character and conflict in this book is the sheer skill with which deeper themes are handled. That's how I know this book is amazing, because you can have a great story (which Fat Chance, Charlie Vega does), but if the themes are lacking, I'll forget about it in a week. For this one though! AHHHHHH.
I knew fatphobia was a thing. I battle it in myself on a regular basis, because I, a skinny girl, have been told enough shit about my own body that I've internalized over the years that I know I have a load of implicit bias again fat people. I didn't realize how prevalent it was until I read Fat Chance. Suddenly, it was popping out at me everywhere. How people in my family would describe people they didn't like as being overweight. How trump supporters are depicted as being heavier than liberals in political cartoons. How everywhere, weight is linked with being wrong, somehow. And Charlie, who is fat, has seen and has been told this message so often that it colors everything in her life.
The synopsis here tries to sell the plot as Charlie working out her relationship with Brian after this bombshell that he liked skinny Amelia first for the entire book. That is not how this story goes. In reality, this story is Charlie working to dismantle her own internalized bias around her own weight and ethnic heritage after every bad message she's ever been handed by the world about her body, her beauty, and her worth are reinforced by one, super sucky guy. It's about balancing her relationship with her best friend with her relationship with her boyfriend, because once you find a new source of love and validation, it's hard to let it go. It's about working on her relationship with her mother, who's succumbed to all the subtle fatphobia she's experienced in the world. (Charlie's mother, by the way, while a massive pain in the ass who definitely goes too far on more than one occasion, is also a fascinating character