My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In most romance novels, in YA romance novels, the fat friend trope is used to build up the slimmer main character’s story. Very rarely do they get the same time and attention as their slimmer counterparts. But in this great YA romance, Crystal Maldonado creates a wonderful, if a little slow, novel with a great fat-positive messages and relationships that feel genuine.
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega follows the title character who harbors deep insecurities about her weight and body image. It doesn’t help that her best friend is slim and athletic and that her mother constantly undercuts her by leaving weight-loss shakes for her and appears to judge her weight rather harshly. When a catastrophic misunderstanding drives home these insecurities, Charlie despairs of ever finding love until a boy from work wins her heart. But her best friend, Amelia, harbors a secret that could devastate everything that Charlie has been building up.
This book has a great fat-positive message. By putting Charlie’s internal struggles front and center, Ms. Maldonando does a great deal to reveal how our culture’s messaging about beauty and slim figures, both overt and covert, can have devastating effects on a person’s self-confidence. After reading this book, I know that I will try to be more mindful about what I say and think in this area and that is why this book is worth reading, even if you are not a big fan of YA romances.
Another great aspect of this book are the relationships Charlie has with her mother, her best friend Amelia, and her co-worker Brian. Each one feels unique and genuine and plays a key role in the story. Sometimes relationships in YA novels can feel superficial or only a means to an end for the plot. But Ms. Maldonado takes time to develop all of these relationships in the novel so that the conflict at the heart of this novels feels just as devastating to us, the reader, as it does to Charlie. Not every relationship issue is tied up in a neat bow by the end of this novel, but that feels both real and okay at the same time. Relationships are long-term commitments and were every relationship issue to be resolved neatly by the end of this book, it would not feel as real. If there is a sequel to this novel, it will be great to see how these relationships continue to develop.
One drawback of this book is how slow the plot moves. Typically YA novels move at a pretty quick pace, but this book does not. Indeed, the climatic reveal at the heart of this book doesn’t come about until about 100 pages before the end of this book. Fortunately, the ending does not feel rushed, but it does take awhile for Ms. Maldonado to get us to the climax itself.
Overall, this is a great YA romance with wonderful fat-positive messaging that may make people think twice about what they say to friends and family who do not neatly fit society’s image of beauty. That only makes this book worth reading, even if you are not a fan of YA, romance, or YA romance.
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