Sunday, February 23, 2014

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot is the second book in the Heather Wells Mysteries series.  It continues to follow Heather Wells as she works as an assistant dorm director at New York College.  In this installment, Heather finds herself investigating a local frat after a cheerleader is found dead in Fisher Hall.

Another easy, chick lit read.  This installment doesn't have as much "mystery" going on as Size 12 Is Not Fat, but it does have quite a bit of action and we get to see different sides to the Heather Wells character.  There are still some writing quirks like Wells being a bit juvenile at times, but at least the residence hall instead of dorm correction is only mentioned a couple times.  If you enjoyed the first book, I'd recommend this one as well.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer

Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer by Jen Lancaster is a humorous memoir about the author's weight loss journey.  Lancaster takes us on her weigh loss mission from "not caring" about how she looks and being forced to reevaluate for medical reasons to joining Weight Watchers and hitting the gym.  There are failures and successes along the way as we see how she finally finds a way to ditch some of that "pretty fat".

I'm usually a fan of humorous memoirs (as you might already know if you are a regular to this blog) and having had my own weight loss journey in the last few years, thought this book would be a fun read.  It turned out to be more of a miss than a hit for me though.

The subject matter would have held my interest, had the book been more focused.  The author starts out with a lot of complaining and excuses, which is often very true to form when starting on a path to getting an exercise/diet routine.  While it was realistic, it was pretty boring to read about and it really takes 100+ pages for Lancaster to get the story going.  I also found that I didn't really like Lancaster.  I'm sure a lot of women will find her relatable and her inner dialogue can be entertaining but after a while it was just too much snark and complaining for me.  Weird, since I normally like snark/sarcasm (thus my love of Laurie Notaro books) but Lancaster's humor just didn't hit the mark.  If you enjoy humorous memoirs, you *might* enjoy this book, but I don't plan to read any more books by this author.