Fat Girl: A True Story

definetly not as good as I thought it would be! Would not reccomend this book- too depressing - no real storyline- just 1 miserable thought after another. At some point we have to accept who we are and make the best of life or otherwise we will live, eat and breathe gloom and doom. I truly felt for the the main character.. but the book oculd have been written a lot better as it had potential.

A great book, very well written. You can tell the author is well acquainted with poetry.
It is painful to read in parts.
I wish we could eliminate child abuse from this world for ever.

I found myself judging her...questioning her...feeling sorry for her...relating to her...disgusted by her...endeared to her. I hope that she eventually took the time and found the strength to love herself and forgive those who wronged her.

this is a touching book, a little uncomfortable to read at times but it's so true. I think it's a must read for someone who has never been on the other side of name calling and harsh treatment. I just wanted to take her in my arms and give her a big hug. Fast read

Far better than I thought, this book shines a light on a part of social life in the U.S. that is far more common than we'd all like to think. This book is about more than being fat... rather, it paints a portrait of parents who shouldn't have been parents, the transition of a self-image of fatness into a self-image of loathing all across the board. Not a pleasant tale, and without a conventional happy ending, the fact that Judith Moore made it through all of the experiences she went through and turned her life into a story of success is all the happy ending that I needed. I read this book for a class on the lives of women writers, and it was well worth reading. I thought that her usage of food metaphors and symbolism throughout was wonderfully crafted. Hard to recommend it as a general book, but one of the better memoirs I've read.

This was a sad book of the author's childhood and her struggles with being fat. You feel really sorry for her and even begin to understand why she was the way she was. A good read.

Ouch. To whatever degree: if you're a woman, you can relate. But there is no plot twist, no happy ending... and that's the point, you have to remember that throughout. A humbling read.

A deeply sorrowful book if but for the stark truth therein of how size shapes and colours life... Judith Moore definitively tells it like it was and still is for the body she was born to inhabit. Unwanted, uncared for and unloved, I appreciated her wherewithal to ‘step up to the plate’ (as it were) to impart some bleakest commentary I’ve ever read about the unfairness of a family’s inhumanity, disrespect and anger...

The two quotes which follow won't take away from what you may learn, all told, in Fat Girl's 196 pages.

Here’s a taste of her 7-year-old life: “All the while that I craved the implied sweetness of words like ‘little girl’ I thought I was a monster. My family had already dug my grave, yes. An emptiness more still than that in which you hear pins drop grew inside me. I was fattening on a dry wind. My badness grew. I knew that I was worse than anyone. Every time Mama slapped me so hard my ears rang or that Grammy knocked me one with the straw broom I knew I deserved every blow. When my mother castigated me for wearing her out by causing her to beat me, deep in my heart I agreed. I see her now, not that sweet pretty Mama of the Mom and Dad fantasy, but a madwoman, her heart-shaped face as wild as the face of a Greek tragedienne. She wept with fury. I was that fury’s cause. She said that. Then she said, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You with a face not even a mother could love. You.’...”

Never one to ever discount or dismiss the untold courage it takes to share buried horror of real life in this world, I then deeply appreciated Ms Moore’s closing lines: “Among reasons people keep sad stories to themselves is that they do not want anyone to feel sorry for them. I don’t. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I do not feel sorry for myself. I am what I am. I am glad I wrote this, and I am grateful – very grateful – that you kept me company while I did. Thank you.”

Though this author may not have wished to put herself on a pedestal, she now deservedly stands a mile high in my pesronal reckoning.

If you were the husky girl in your class/family, then you've been through alot of the stuff in this book. But the parental negligence/abuse and indifference made it very uncomfortable to read, at times.

This book is a true and at times tragic story. It is totally relatable for anyone who ever was or felt like she was the fat girl. I laughed out loud and one point, but most of the story is sad. I definitely recommend it.