Day 43-BA5 takes the lead

I finished this book a couple days ago…

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is a work of fiction by Mona Awad and comprised of 13 vignettes, in keeping with the theme of the book.

The first chapter features the female narrator and her friend Mel, both bored, drinking Blizzards, and considering propositioning a table of three businessmen eating burgers at a fast-food restaurant. Mel is curious if the guys will take her up on her offer for oral sex; the narrator seems uncomfortable the entire time. In this vignette, we learn that the narrator is fat…much fatter than her friend, Mel. Ultimately, the girls decide not to approach the men, but, strangely, the last page of this 11-page chapter lists, in detail, the many and varied sexual and physical assaults both girls will undergo over the coming years.

How does this particular chapter depict “one way of looking at a fat girl”, you ask? I still don’t know.

Chapter 2 falls more in line with the title and objectification. This essay is told from the perspective of Rob, a loser musician, who can’t make his relationship work with his current, and thin, girlfriend. Rob uses the narrator, whom he calls “the fat girl” throughout the essay, for drunken booty calls. Because Rob can’t recall her name, that means we, the reader, still don’t know the narrator’s name. We do find out, however, that she is 17.

Whenever Rob needs an ego boost or free food, he stops by the adoring narrator’s house to play his shitty music and feast on a gourmet spread. After a lengthy description of the fat girl, “how fat is she?” is finally answered and we also learn her name is Lizzie.  After Rob uses Lizzie for sex and food, the next morning he writes her a horrible “Dear Jane” letter, on her own stationary, explaining that he was drunk last night and never should have slept with her. Recall that Lizzie is a minor child so last night’s sexual encounter is actually statutory rape, although there is no mention made of this in the book.

By the end of the essay, Rob appears to have some remorse, especially when Lizzie stops taking his calls. One night, Rob drives to Lizzie’s house and peeps through the window, where he discovers that he has been replaced by another loser musician, who also plays his shitty music for Lizzie and who, like Rob, also can’t remember Lizzie’s name.

Chapter 3 – Full Body

This time, the “fat girl” gaze is from a fellow college student named China, who befriends Lizzie and teaches her how to do a “smoky eye” as she prattles on about her (China’s) own love life. In this vignette, we learn that China has offered to take photos of Lizzie so she (Lizzie) can send them to her AOL boyfriend, who is 47 and happens to be a quadriplegic; they have never met in person. At first, it is thought that the injury might be a war injury, but then we learn that one night, this guy did too much coke, climbed to the top of a 40-foot palm tree, and jumped.

China, who happens to be skinny, arrives at Lizzie’s house for the “photo shoot” but can’t be bothered to take more than three crappy pictures before abruptly leaving so she can stop by a dance club. In a fit of rage, Lizzie pulls down all of her pin-up girl posters, nailed to the walls by her own mother, and never contacts her AOL boyfriend again.

By now, I really want to stop reading. Lizzie can’t seem to get a break and she only dates losers - it’s depressing.  HOWEVER, L. read and referred this book so I keep going.

Chapter 4 – If That’s All There Is

Now, Lizzie is working at an indie bookstore when her co-worker gives Lizzie a scrap of paper citing a sexual act he would like to perform on her. This guy’s a gross pig, but because there’s nobody else in Lizzie’s life, she ends up letting Archibald go down on her in a taxicab, where she disassociates because she has no interest in him or performing sex acts in public. So, of course, it’s reasonable when she…invites him over??!! I really don’t understand… Now, he’s at her house every day.

Not only is this book depressing, but Lizzie becomes more pathetic with each chapter. I’m not finding a redemptive arc with this character. Although Lizzie doesn’t like Archibald, she does like that he finds her body attractive, fat and all. Other than this one positive, Archibald is yet another loser in a long string of losers, groping her breasts in public and speaking endlessly about the harmonica and what that instrument means to music. He’s also ugly.

Eventually, Lizzie learns that Archibald has been cheating on her the entire time with an obese woman - Lizzie notes that the other woman is fatter than her - who has no style. In a lover’s triangle gone horribly wrong, Britta, the other woman, screams at Lizzie over the phone, then rushes to her house, where she encounters both Archibald and Lizzie. Lizzie notices that Archibald is secretly pleased that he is the love interest of both women until Britta hits him square in the mouth with the harmonica, knocking out some of his teeth. The three of them go to the hospital, where Lizzie finally manages to extricate herself from this situation.

I want to stop reading this book…

But all is not lost as we move into Chapter 5 because Lizzie meets Tom, a nice guy, at the last live show of one of her favorite bands: “Even though I was at my fattest then, he just looked at me, took my hand, and said we should probably line up.” This is a long distance relationship and the time periods between their rendezvous’ gives Lizzie incentive to lose weight.

As she begins to drop pounds, Lizzie’s hatred of herself and her own body is projected onto one of her co-workers, whom she calls “Itsy Bitsy.” In fact, this projected hate may be why Lizzie, who has now changed her name to Beth, hates every woman but Mel, who surfaces occasionally throughout the book, but only as a last resort when there is nobody else whom Beth can call. Mel is now obese, far fatter than Beth, has done virtually nothing with her life, and moved back into her childhood bedroom at her mother’s home.

Itsy Bitsy deliberately eats huge scones and other assorted pastries in front of Beth while simultaneously commenting, “your salad is sooo small.” Beth tells Mel: “I think she actually gets off eating copiously in front of me while I eat nothing, and pointing out how I’m eating nothing while she’s eating copiously.”

There’s a short chapter – I Want Too Much – where Beth is trying on clothes at a department store and “Trixie” the sales girl, says everything looks “cute” on Beth, even when zippers and seams are about to burst.

This chapter is followed by My Mother’s Idea of Sexy, where Beth’s obese mother “pimps her out” by dressing Beth in outfits that only a prostitute would wear, in the hope of running into a few of her (Mom’s) friends so they can see what a thin daughter she has. This chapter is gross, disgusting, and sad simultaneously.

As with every woman in the book, Beth also hates her mother. This essay is filled with passages from Beth’s inner monologue detailing the disgust Beth feels towards her mother, with emphasis placed on her Mom’s obesity, (read: lack of control), particularly since she has diabetes. Her Mom can’t catch her breath or feel her feet, yet she continues to eat vast quantities of food and sugar. Beth’s Mom and Dad are divorced but we learn that Beth’s father has always believed being fat is a choice.

Tom is meeting Beth’s mother for the first time and arrives at her house to collect Beth so they can leave for the “Southwest” to start their lives. Ironically, Beth has lost so much weight, Tom is no longer attracted to her, but they head to the Southwest anyway.

In the chapter that follows, Beth’s mother is dead.

Earlier in the book, we saw Lizzie, who wanted to be called Beth, who now wants to be called Elizabeth, through Rob, the loser musician’s, eyes. She’ll Do Anything, one of the last chapters, provides the reader with Tom’s perspective of Elizabeth. We discover that Elizabeth is an angry woman because she perpetually starves herself, eating chips or ice cream ONCE every TWO weeks. Most of Elizabeth’s time is spent mincing vegetables; the dinners she prepares for her and Tom are disgusting. Oddly, Elizabeth wears extremely tight cocktail dresses at home, so tight that she can barely sit – it’s bizarre. Tom misses Beth and hates Elizabeth. The only time Elizabeth is not uptight and irritated is when she is eating chips and/or ice cream every two weeks for about 10 minutes.

Elizabeth’s entire existence is spent counting calories, yet she has a fat fetish. Every week, she schedules a manicure with Cassie, an overweight manicurist, because Elizabeth cannot fathom how somebody as overweight as Cassie can eat as much as she wants, still have a hot husband, and enjoy her life. In other words, Cassie is happy despite being fat, whereas Elizabeth is miserable despite having reached her ideal weight. This relationship, even though it’s transactional, ends like all of her other female relationships when she asks Cassie if she’s actually happy with her life, to which Cassie says yes.

Lizzie, who wanted to be called Beth, who then wanted to be called Elizabeth, who now wants to be called Liz, never returns to Cassie again.  Liz leaves her husband and moves in with a former co-worker, Eve, who bakes every morning but eats nothing because Eve also has an eating disorder. After staying with Eve for a short period of time, Liz returns to her childhood bedroom in her mother’s home, where she puts on weight, which manifests in a “muffin top” and “back sausage.” Liz hires a trainer to help her get rid of the extra fat, but continues eating high caloric/high fat foods with her father most nights.. The End.

Hard “pass” on this book. Warning: Do not read.

8/3/22. Wednesday

-At 7:00 I’m awake with terrible cramps. I take Advil and return to bed. The bike ride is not going to happen.

-8:30-9:00-Diarrhea and cramps. I’m at 96 today.

-9:00-10:00-I take the dog out and warm up my coffee. Cheese for her, coffee for me. I return to bed and listen to The Daily.

10:30-11:50-bullet journal. I listen to The Productive Woman and Organize 365.

12:00-1:00-I have a few pieces of L.’s brownies, grab ice, and take a shower. After, I try on one of my older bikini tops with the new bikini bottoms I just bought to see if everything fits.

1:00-1:45-I water my plants.

1:45-2:20-I make a lunch of canned tuna and white beans, then pack my lunch bag.

2:20-2:45-I also pack my beach bag and drive across the street to the pool.

2:45-5:00-There’s a gross, sketchy, tatted-up, white dude here, with scraggly hair. He’s actually smoking poolside and his music is so loud I can hear it through his ear buds. Please leave.

-I lay out this entire time and read The Curated Closet.

-I eat cucumber slices and hummus and tuna and beans for lunch. For dessert, I have some of my yogurt-apple concoction and a couple pieces of L’s brownies. I go in the pool several times because it is sooo hot out here.

5:00-6:30-I drive home, change out of my bathing suit, and lie down. More Curated Closet reading. I’m wiped out after being in that heat so I take a nap.

7:00-7:30-I do a 15-min Insanity Max - Ab workout

7:30-8:30-I do a 30-min Insanity Max-Strength workout then read more Curated Closet.

8:30-9:00-I drive to Cold Stone and buy a small Strawberry Blonde ice cream.

9:00-9:30-I eat the ice cream while reading Curated Closet.

9:30-10:30-Kitchen duty and I start working on a blog post.

10:30-12:00-L. returns home and fills me in on what’s happening with her job.

12:00-1:00-I finish my blog post.

1:00-2:30-I start creating an online Syllabus for Specialty Class 1A; and

2:30-3:15-accidentally fall asleep.

3:30-4:30-Nighttime routine. Sunless tanning and I paint my nails. Bed.