Fat Girl by Judith Moore is based on her true-life story; the entire book is her complete and honest story from her childhood. Growing up as a fat unhappy girl, into a ‘still’ fat woman.
The story itself is sad, upsetting, and disturbing, not because the little girl is a fat little girl and can’t lose weight, but because throughout the book she is physically and emotionally abused.
Her mother beats her time and time again, because she is fat, and she constantly puts her on crash diets, and even puts her through cycles of starvation to get her to loose weight; but in reality, it’s not to get her to lose weight, its to punish her for the most part, and to get her to look the way she wants her to look; thin.
If she fails to loose any weight she is beaten again, while being mentally abused.
Her mother constantly reminds her of how worthless and ugly she is, almost every time she is in her presence. She is blamed her for all the wrongs in her life; how wonderful her life would have been if she was never born, and constantly talks down to her about how fat and worthless her father is and that is why they are divorced, and that she is just like her fat worthless father.
When she goes to live with her Grandmother for the summer because of her mother’s job, the Grandmother also mentally abuses her. (Like mother like daughter. Two sick pieces of garbage). I truly thought that going to Granny’s house would of been a turn for the better for the poor young girl. Sadly this was not the case.
You become aware early on of how the girl has a love for food, and perhaps still does by the way she describes food throughout chapters and the meals she ate in full detail, perhaps too much detail.
She really cannot help herself, food becomes her comfort, for the comfort that she does not get from her home life, and this is why she continues to grow larger and larger. It gets so bad that she is even breaking into other people’s homes to help herself to some of their food, and raiding fridges and cabinets of goods, and to pretend she is a member of their family.
The girl is constantly abused, not only by her mother, but by peers at school as well. She is even sexually assaulted when she is only 12 years old. She does not tell anyone, and ends up living with the fear of running into the person again.
Through the book she keeps telling herself that if she were thin people wouldn’t treat her so badly. If she was thin her mother might love her, and her Grandmother would praise her. It’s just horrible that her very own mother and family scarred her with such a complex. A few chapters in, she even starts to refer to herself as an animal. She is so scarred that she does not even think of herself as a human.
By the middle of the book you will hear the word, ‘stone’ and ‘rock’. She refers to herself as this often. She has become a stone, a rock, because nothing can hurt a stone or a rock. She slowly begins to lose herself within herself. She shuts herself out from the rest of the world, because she knows all they will do is hurt her.
My Feelings:
You end up feeling horrible for this abused child. You want to reach into the pages and save her, pick her up into the air and swing her around and around. (This is what she had always wanted as a child, someone to pick her up and swing her around and around)
You will finish this book and be just upset by the whole thing. There was nothing wrong with this child, all she ever wanted was acceptance, and love. The very own woman who brought her into the world emotionally ruined her. As traumatic as it was for the author, I am glad that she was able to share her story with everyone.
You don’t feel bad for her for her weight problem, you feel bad for her because of the abuse she endured, and because she couldn’t understand the difference. I feel that even towards the end she thinks her life would have been different if she were skinny. However I feel that her mother would of beaten her no matter what size she was.
I bought this book because I honestly thought it was the book to ‘fat girl’ the movie, a foreign film I had seen a few months earlier. However when I read the back of the book, I discovered it wasn’t.
I thought it was going to be a book about how a fat girl grew up into the swan she had always wished to be, on the inside where it matters most. I thought it would be about a fat girl who combated an eating disorder, or starved herself to the point of being an anorexic. I was again very wrong.
As sad as this story was though it still didn’t really teach a lesson, or offer any help to anyone who may be going through something similar to what she had.
Basically all it teaches is to turn into a rock and no one can hurt you. I don’t really like that as a guide on how to combat abuse, or being fat. At the end you never really know if she had ever loved herself. You as a reader will be left disturbed, and a bit confused.
I do wish the author would of went into how she feels about herself today. She sort of left you out on that part, and it made me wonder if she still views herself as an animal, a stone, or a rock. I would of liked to hear no…but I am left uncertain.
Overall:
Fat Girl was a fast and easy read. Some parts were a bit stretched out… describing what you had for dinner should not be compiled into 4 pages. One word to describe mashed potatoes is enough… not a whole 3 paragraph run on, on the texture, color, and smell. It got sort of boring when the author described food.
I would be more readily willing to recommend this book if the author would of filled us in on how she feels about herself today… and after writing the book.
We didn’t get that though. I was left with the impression that she is still suffering from depression.
Therefor I can’t really recommend it whole heartedly.
