Et cetera : What We're Reading: 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

What We're Reading: '13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl' by Mona Awad

The Libby App recently delivered '13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad (I’m kind of a Mona Awad junkie lately...) and it was another strange, wonderful trip. This time, Awad tackles weight loss culture through 13 phases of Lizzie, Liz, and/or Elizabeth—depending on which version of her life you’re reading.

We follow her from a self-conscious teenager navigating fashion, friendship, and her complicated relationship with her mother, to a newly divorced woman half the size she once was. Awad brilliantly captures the push and pull of mother-daughter relationships, and how early fashion seeps into our sense of self before we even know who we are. Sometimes harming us even.

What I love most about Awad’s writing is her uncanny ability to take the weird little thoughts I thought no one else had and spin them into entire novels. She’s such a strange and delightful voice to read.

Happy reading, friends.

~Heather