# Something For The Kiddies



## coolag12345 (Feb 24, 2009)

I have uncovered a very interesting book on Amazon, and it may be in _your_ local high school library. 

From School Library Journal:



> Life In The Fat Lane
> 
> Grade 8 Up?Lara, 16, is just what most girls want to be: thin, beautiful, and smart. She's dating one of the cutest boys in school, and she's popular. Then she notices that she's gained a few pounds. Unconcerned, she starts to work out harder and watches what she eats. However, her weight keeps going up, and soon Lara weighs over 200 pounds. She spends a week in a hospital on a controlled liquid diet, and the doctors and nutritionists can't understand why she becomes even heavier. Suddenly, she is no longer popular and is faced with ridicule from everyone around her. The story of Lara's weight gain is set against a backdrop of her outwardly perfect, but deeply troubled family life: her father is having a long-term affair, her mother is insecure and obsessed with her (and Lara's) appearance, and her younger brother is angry and rebellious. All of these characters and situations are skillfully drawn, resulting in a compelling story. Bennett captures the voices of teenagers well and offers insight into what it's like to be overweight in a society that is so caught up in appearances. Lara is further challenged when she finds out that the cause of her sudden weight gain is Axell-Crowne Syndrome (readers learn in an author's note that the disease is fictional). This plot device allows for more insight into Lara's character, as she struggles with being overweight through no "fault" of her own. While the fabrication of the disease may surprise or even disappoint some readers, most will find this an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.


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## The Id (Feb 26, 2009)

Why do I think that we're going to see a story here soon about Axell-Crowne Syndrome soon? Thanks for bringing this one up!


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## Blackjack (Feb 26, 2009)

I read that in middle school, actually. I don't remember being overly fond of it-didn't much care for the writing, I think- but it did help me realize that I wasn't such a freakish weirdo for digging fat chicks, as there's a few bits in there where the main character goes out with a few friends in a new town and meets up with some of their friends, who're FAs (though they're called chubby chasers in the book).


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## Weeze (Feb 26, 2009)

I read it when I was in middle school too!!!
I liked it a lot, but I sorta just thought it was a good book...
Maybe there was something to it?


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## Coop (Feb 26, 2009)

The book was pretty depressing and is a grim reminder how the real world can be like at times.


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## The Id (Feb 26, 2009)

Shhhh! I've actually ordered this at the library for myself, so don't spoil it for me. 

Of course, in middle school I had to read books like The Giver. I think I went to a much too serious middle school to read anything fun like this.


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## montuemon (Feb 27, 2009)

I read it in middle school as well. Searching for more stories like it helped me find this site.


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## The Id (Mar 3, 2009)

Okay, so I breezed through the story in two days ad here's my reaction, with plenty of spoilers, so read at your own peril!









The book actually reads a lot like a story you'd find here, except with one major difference: there's next to no description. If you ever wanted to find out how important description is to WG stories, read this book. It was shocking, and actually surreal for me. The chapter "numbers" are actually the primary character's weight in that chapter, which gives you an accurate way of keeping track of the weight gain. But other than that, all I would have been able to tell was that the protagonist (it's written in first person), considers herself fat. And that doesn't tell you much of anything because for about 4/5 of the book the protagonist thinks she's too fat and loathes herself.

Though the protagonist eventually accepts her weight, it takes her an obnoxiously long time to do so. Seriously, it's not until page 248 of 260 that the protagonist is actually happy. And the weight gain starts on page 40. And if you do the math you discover that's 208 pages of being fat and unhappy: that's exactly 80% of the novel. Now, this actually happens in a lot of weight gain stories. Take my recent entry, Golden State University. One character begins to have problems on page 24 and is only happy again by page 46 of 54. Still, that's only 22 pages out of 54, which is 41% of the story. I think what made it hard to read this was that there were no nuggets that we as readers love to get, no extensive, loving descriptions of the protagonist's body. Anything we get is calculated to convey the protagonist's own disgust of her own body.

However, by and large, the story has the same base and structure as anything we read here. For example, let me read you the actual description of symptoms for the fictional Axell-Crowne Syndrome from page 110:



> "Yes," the doctor agreed, "Axell and Crowne are working togther now, and they theorize that these patients' bodies have somehow become superefficient, and just about all the food and water they take in is put to use. In fact, the less they eat, the more efficient their bodies are, so they actually gain _more_ weight by ingesting _less_ food.
> 
> "The other common denominator seems to be that the patient hardly sweats, urinates, or defecates," the doctor continued.



Seriously now. I'm surprised nobody's written here about a disease where the less someone eats, the more they gain--and they don't sweat or have to take care of bodily functions! On top of this, the author goes out of her way to see to it that the protagonist is teased by other people and goes into great detail to talk about the constant embarrassment that the protagonist experiences. It's a miracle that she doesn't rip a pair of pants in front of her entire gym class during the course of the story, to be honest.

Though the protagonist does find out eventually that there are guys who like big girls or just don't care about how much a woman weighs, it feels very perfunctorily treated. The fact she appears to be on the road to getting back with her old boyfriend who has now kind of seen the light undermines that point to a certain degree. The fact that the book ends with the possibility that she could lose all the weight she has gained--and the fact that the protagonist actively desires this on the second to last page--also hurts any fat positive message people might be looking for out of this.

From the perspective of a WG story reader, I think that most people can pass this one. If you're a writer, I'd encourage you to read it if you've got a spare moment, mainly because it really shows you the power of description to make our stories interesting. Beyond that, I always like to see how others write WG. This is a unique story because it's not designed for this community, but for a general reading public. I'd be surprised if the author was aware of the Dimensions Weight Room (the book came out in 1998, so I believe it would have been around and hopping since I think I came to the Weight Room about that time myself), but I'd be curious if she had read any stories. If she had, then it would be even more interesting in that the book would be a reflection of how an outsider would view this genre of writing.

There's my thoughts, hope people find them interesting!


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## elroycohen (Mar 4, 2009)

The Id said:


> There's my thoughts, hope people find them interesting!



Definitly interesting. Thanks for the review.

It has been so long since I read that one I had forgotten it altogether until this thread. I just remember being so in shock that a storyline like that got published.



ec


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## elroycohen (Mar 4, 2009)

Now that I think it about it, the story reminds me a bit of Observer's work. Specifically his _Fish Out of Water Learns to Swim_. The whole coming to terms with things and being happy within one's own body message.

But maybe it's just too early in the morning for my mind to function properly.


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## Vader7476 (Mar 4, 2009)

Very nicely done ID! So that's why you honed in so much on my current story. Hehe! 

Perhaps since the story was first person, the reader's not supposed to know how big the girl is? That way the teasing can be applied to anyone's weight, and it's more of an anti-bully book rather than a fat acceptance one. You say the author was a female? Perhaps she had a similar problem, and wrote from experience. Unless one looks in a mirror, it's hard to describe yourself.


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## The Id (Mar 4, 2009)

Vader7476 said:


> Perhaps since the story was first person, the reader's not supposed to know how big the girl is? That way the teasing can be applied to anyone's weight, and it's more of an anti-bully book rather than a fat acceptance one.



I find that a rather compelling answer, actually. The bigger point of the novel is self-acceptance, not fat acceptance. As I said, I think the latter is somewhat undermined, in actuality, by the book. That may be why it was sped through publication. But, then again, even in 1998, there are a lot of fat teenage girls out there. Book publishers aren't stupid people. They know their demographics and probably would have saw an opportunity to sell some books here.

Elroy, I actually haven't read that Observer story, but I'll go and do so now to see if it does indeed come close to the mark!


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## The Id (Mar 5, 2009)

Just read Fish Out of Water Learns To Swim. Though it's similar in that the emphasis is not on the description of the protagonist at various stages of the weight gain, it couldn't be more different on the whole. Observer, naturally, has a positive, self-confident protagonist throughout the entire story. Life in the Fat Lane, as I said earlier, has a narrator who loathes herself for 80% of the novel, and still wishes to be thin at the end of it, though she has supposedly found happiness (something I'm not totally convinced of). I don't think I'd call them analogous at all, but if you think differently, I'd love to hear.


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## elroycohen (Mar 5, 2009)

The Id said:


> Just read Fish Out of Water Learns To Swim. Though it's similar in that the emphasis is not on the description of the protagonist at various stages of the weight gain, it couldn't be more different on the whole. Observer, naturally, has a positive, self-confident protagonist throughout the entire story. Life in the Fat Lane, as I said earlier, has a narrator who loathes herself for 80% of the novel, and still wishes to be thin at the end of it, though she has supposedly found happiness (something I'm not totally convinced of). I don't think I'd call them analogous at all, but if you think differently, I'd love to hear.



I guess my thought was on the focus of the stories not on weight gain but life experiences and attitudes, but I see what you're saying.


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## Observer (Mar 5, 2009)

The reason that story rings so true is that there is a prototype of the main protagonist who really exists - I'm wondering if we'll have a fifty year class reunon and if so whether she'll be there.


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## The Id (Mar 7, 2009)

It turns out that the author also wrote a play version of this as well. I was able to read through the first ten pages with Google books and it was intereting. Sadly, I didn't get to the weight gain part to see how they did that.


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