Like a Love Story (2019) by Abdi Nazemian is the historical queer coming-of-age story I never knew that I needed to read. It was a 2020 Stonewall Honor book and chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best YA books of all time, both designations well-deserved. It’s 1987, and Reza has just movedContinue reading “Like a Love Story”
Category Archives: Fat Positive
The Book of Etta
The Book of Etta (2017) by Meg Elison is the second book in The Road to Nowhere series, which begins with The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. We meet Etta/ Eddy, a daughter of Nowhere, the town the Unnamed had come to after her long journey. Etta goes by Eddy when she is out raiding,Continue reading “The Book of Etta”
If the Shoe Fits
If the Shoe Fits (2021) by Julie Murphy is her unique, fat-positive, contemporary retelling of the Cinderella story. Cindy, a shoe designer, returns to the LA area to live with her producer-stepmother, 2 stepsisters, and 2 preschool-aged twin siblings after finishing design school in New York, Erica, her stepmother, produces the hottest reality dating showContinue reading “If the Shoe Fits”
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care (2022) by Ashley Herring Blake, is a delightful queer sapphic romance that features a couple of my favorite romance tropes: Forced Proximity and Coming Home/High School Crush. Blake has written several YA and middle-grade novels, including the 2018 Stonewall Honor Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, but this is her firstContinue reading “Delilah Green Doesn’t Care”
Right Where I Left You
Right Where I Left You (2022) by Julian Winters, is a super-cute, queer teen romance filled both with queer characters of color, and comic book and video game fan references. Isaac Martin has just graduated high school and is enjoying his summer before heading off to college in the fall. Despite his sometimes-crippling anxiety, hisContinue reading “Right Where I Left You”
A Dark and Starless Forest
In A Dark and Starless Forest (2021), Sarah Hollowell has written a rare gift–a fat-positive YA fantasy that has something for everyone, except perhaps for cis white middle-aged men. It’s written from Derry’s perspective–she is a fat, white teenager, one of nine multiracial siblings in an adoptive family headed by Frank, their guardian, Each ofContinue reading “A Dark and Starless Forest”
The Cherry Robbers
I highly anticipated reading The Cherry Robbers (publishing today, May 17, 2022) by Sarai Walker, author of Dietland, and I was not disappointed. Walker’s second book is different in tone and subject matter, but it is just as transgressive as Dietland was. There are two storylines: The first is set in the very recent pastContinue reading “The Cherry Robbers”
Pumpkin
In Pumpkin (2021), Julie Murphy has created another hero of Clover City, the West Texas town that is the location of Dumplin‘ and Puddin‘. Waylon Brewer is a high school senior, a fat, openly gay boy whose parents “hit the queer lottery” because his twin sister, Clementine, is a lesbian. Waylon is a ginger withContinue reading “Pumpkin”
Leah on the Offbeat
Leah on the Offbeat (2018) by Becky Albertalli (author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda, turned into the movie Love, Simon) is so worthy of the 2018 Goodreads Choice Award that it won. It’s a young adult contemporary F/F romance, full of sarcasm, Harry Potter references, and more time with the characters of theContinue reading “Leah on the Offbeat”
Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert (2020) by Olivia Dade is the fat-positive heterosexual romance I never knew that I needed to read! Marcus is an actor on the most popular show in the U.S., Gods of the Gates, clearly inspired by Game of Thrones. He plays Aeneas, and takes his acting seriously. learning swordwork and horseback riding likeContinue reading “Spoiler Alert”
Reading While Fat 