Book: Dietland by Sarai Walker
Source: Library
Description:
The diet revolution is here. And it’s armed.
Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls’ magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin.
Then, when a mysterious woman starts following her, Plum finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into an underground community of women who live life on their own terms. There Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with her past, her doubts, and the real costs of becoming “beautiful.” At the same time, a dangerous guerrilla group called “Jennifer” begins to terrorize a world that mistreats women, and as Plum grapples with her personal struggles, she becomes entangled in a sinister plot. The consequences are explosive.
Dietland is a bold, original, and funny debut novel that takes on the beauty industry, gender inequality, and our weight loss obsession—from the inside out, and with fists flying.
Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)
Review:
Ugh, this book is so boring. I could barely read this. The writing is bland but also has a strange violent edge to it. The writing left me feeling nothing for the characters or the story. I'm still trying to figure out what this is even about, was it the memoir of a notorious dieter or something else entirely. There is also this underlining hatred towards women of a certain size and just women in general. Reading (or trying to read) this made me wonder if the author was simply just angry and used the book as way to lash out.
This lackluster story opens with Alicia "Plum" Kettle noticing that she is being followed by a young woman. Where ever she goes her shadow is there. Plum works for a glossy teen magazine where she answers reader questions. She's overweight and hates how she looks, she's been dieting for years but nothing seems to be working. To see a change, she has scheduled a weight loss surgery but until then she buys clothes that are smaller than her current size and hides them away in her closet. It's as if her life won't begin until she has that surgery.
Besides hating her weight, Plum also hates her life. She doesn't have any friends except for Carmen a former college friend who now owns a 1950's inspired café. This café is where Plum spends her time answering reader questions and occasionally filling in a shift or two for Carmen.
The premise of this is that Plum some how gets drawn into a radical feminist group who use their hatred towards men as a way to start a violent revolution but I didn't feel like sticking around for that or find out who the strange young woman was who was following her. This wasn't for me and I'm so glad I checked this out from the library because if I had bought this I would be even more disappointed with this book since I would have wasted money on it.
The description states that this is a bold, original, and funny debut novel but it certainly doesn't seem like any of those things. It riddled with clichés, unlikable characters and a dumb plot. It's a joyless story that doesn't make any sense.
I don't know why many reviews have touted this as being a feminist story if anything it come across as being the complete opposite.
Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls’ magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin.
Then, when a mysterious woman starts following her, Plum finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into an underground community of women who live life on their own terms. There Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with her past, her doubts, and the real costs of becoming “beautiful.” At the same time, a dangerous guerrilla group called “Jennifer” begins to terrorize a world that mistreats women, and as Plum grapples with her personal struggles, she becomes entangled in a sinister plot. The consequences are explosive.
Dietland is a bold, original, and funny debut novel that takes on the beauty industry, gender inequality, and our weight loss obsession—from the inside out, and with fists flying.
Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)
Review:
Ugh, this book is so boring. I could barely read this. The writing is bland but also has a strange violent edge to it. The writing left me feeling nothing for the characters or the story. I'm still trying to figure out what this is even about, was it the memoir of a notorious dieter or something else entirely. There is also this underlining hatred towards women of a certain size and just women in general. Reading (or trying to read) this made me wonder if the author was simply just angry and used the book as way to lash out.
This lackluster story opens with Alicia "Plum" Kettle noticing that she is being followed by a young woman. Where ever she goes her shadow is there. Plum works for a glossy teen magazine where she answers reader questions. She's overweight and hates how she looks, she's been dieting for years but nothing seems to be working. To see a change, she has scheduled a weight loss surgery but until then she buys clothes that are smaller than her current size and hides them away in her closet. It's as if her life won't begin until she has that surgery.
Besides hating her weight, Plum also hates her life. She doesn't have any friends except for Carmen a former college friend who now owns a 1950's inspired café. This café is where Plum spends her time answering reader questions and occasionally filling in a shift or two for Carmen.
The premise of this is that Plum some how gets drawn into a radical feminist group who use their hatred towards men as a way to start a violent revolution but I didn't feel like sticking around for that or find out who the strange young woman was who was following her. This wasn't for me and I'm so glad I checked this out from the library because if I had bought this I would be even more disappointed with this book since I would have wasted money on it.
The description states that this is a bold, original, and funny debut novel but it certainly doesn't seem like any of those things. It riddled with clichés, unlikable characters and a dumb plot. It's a joyless story that doesn't make any sense.
I don't know why many reviews have touted this as being a feminist story if anything it come across as being the complete opposite.
No comments:
Post a Comment