Book Review: My Mad Fat Diary

Book: My Mad Fat Diary by Rae Earl

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

It's 1989 and Rae Earl is a fat, boy-mad 17-year-old girl, living in Stamford, Lincolnshire with her mum and their deaf white cat in a council house with a mint green bathroom and a refrigerator Rae can't keep away from. She’s also just been released from a psychiatric ward.

My Mad Fat Diary is the hilarious, harrowing and touching real-life diary Rae kept during that fateful year and the basis of the hit British television series of the same name now coming to HULU. Surrounded by people like her constantly dieting mum, her beautiful frenemy Bethany, her mates from the private school up the road (called “Haddock”, “Battered Sausage” and “Fig”) and the handsome, unattainable boys Rae pines after (who sometimes end up with Bethany…), My Mad Fat Diary is the story of an overweight young woman just hoping to be loved at a time when slim pop singers ruled the charts.

Rae's chronicle of her world will strike a chord with anyone who's ever been a confused, lonely teenager clashing with her parents, sometimes overeating, hating her body, always taking herself VERY seriously, never knowing how positively brilliant she is and keeping a diary to record it all. My Mad Fat Diary – 365 days with one of the wisest and funniest girls in England.



Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)

Review:

This was a book I couldn't connect with mainly because it was really dull and boring.

My Mad Fat Diary follows the life of the author who at that time was 17 years old. It takes place in England during the 1980s. She wrote about her feelings with her weight, her relationship with her mother, her time at school, her desire to be in love and to lose her virginity.

I forced myself to read a good portion of this before I stopped. There was nothing really happening in this other than reading the inner thoughts of a teenager.

I remember being 17 and having a diary, writing down everything that I was feeling or I was going through. And at that age, everything feels like it's the end of the world or earthshattering but when you look back at what was written it was not even remotely bad or as traumatic as it seemed at the time. Which is how this memoir or diary reads.

As I was reading this I kept wondering why was this published? It doesn't read as if there are any life lessons to be learned only snippets or moments in the life of a 17 year old. Perhaps, this wasn't for me.

As of now, I am going to pass on reading this. However, I am interested in watching the TV series (it's on hulu) to see how they incorporated the material from the book.