Customer Reviews

Fat Chance (Red Dress Ink Novels)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Heroine: plump/average

A size activist is unshakeable in her convictions, right? That's what "Fat Chance" columnist Maggie O'Leary thought as she championed well-padded people everywhere, answering their heartbreaking letters with all the compassion she could muster.  But that was before Hollywood snatched her up and turned her inside out and upside down.

When Maggie receives a phone call from heart throb Mike Taylor she's ready to dismiss it as a prank played by one of her coworkers. But she learns that it's the real deal and her once lonely, now star struck heart leads her to accept a job as Mike's technical advisor, who is in charge of giving him the lowdown on food issues and eating disorders for his role as a diet doc.

Maggie has just two months before she gets to play tutor to the hunk and is frantic at the thought of meeting him as her frumpy self. A little exercising here, eating carefully there, highlights, chin suctioning. It's no big deal, she's just improving on who she is, right?

Once in California, Maggie's head is caught up in the whirlwind of the Tinsel town high life and her heart is becoming more and more lost to the amiable Taylor by the minute. But her readers can feel a difference in her columns, which increasingly focus on how to eat and exercise sensibly, and Maggie finally has to face reality when paparazzi pictures of her posing with the silver screen stud completely blow her cover. The queen of queen-sized now barely rates as the princess of plump.

So Maggie is in a quandary. What does she want? Life in a thinner body with Michael Taylor in Hollywood? To be large and living in New York near her aging mother? And while she's agonizing over her decision, will she manage to hang on to her column--and her sanity?

What worked for me:

"Fat Chance" has some very clever lines in it. Great humor writing always gets a point from me.

There were some terrific factoids in this book, some reassuring some not so reassuring.

Maggie's emotional journey throughout the book really struck a chord with me, as I expect it will with dieters the world over.

Size-wise Maggie starts out fairly abundant but whittles herself down to a plush average. Her assistant Tamara is a confirmed yo-yo dieter. And the Metro editor, Tex, is a delicious BHM (big handsome man).

What didn't work for me:

I just can't make up my mind if I like the writing style and the structure of this book or not. The present tense first person point of view broken up by newspaper articles and interviews was very interesting to say the least. A new spin on Bridget's diary entries in a way. But let's face it, combining a how-to-be-healthy-while-large manual with fiction so that they balance correctly is a monumental task, and not all readers will find the proportions the author chose was right for them. Some may want more story and less number crunching and healthy eating and weight loss tips, and others vice versa.

Overall:
             "Fat Chance" certainly deserves a chance if you enjoy chick lit, but if you can't stomach the idea of watching the heroine go on a diet you may want to give it a pass.

Warning: there are some coarse words, weight loss, and brief discussions of eating disorders.

If you liked "Fat Chance" you might also enjoy "The Way It Is", "The Fat Friend", "All of Me", "The High Price of a Good Man", "Good in Bed", "Jemima J.", "Sisterhood Situation", "Etta Mae's Little Theory", or the "Odelia Grey" series.

I really wanted to like this book. I read the first few pages at the bookstore and thought, finally! A heroine who is overweight and, if not deliriously happy about it, accepts this about herself. While the back cover blurb did promise that Maggie would lose sight of what was truly important when given the opportunity to meet her celebrity crush, I could certainly understand that... EVERYONE has fallen into the trap of wanting to look like society's idea of the perfect woman at one time or another, haven't we? Besides, it wouldn't be much of a story if Maggie simply went about her life perfectly content to be wearing plus sizes.

What disappointed me was not only the unrealistic weight loss (30 pounds in 5 weeks?) or the unbelievable transformation Maggie underwent (30 pounds and she's suddenly edging out a supermodel for a movie star's attention), but Maggie's complete reversal from fat acceptance advocate, assuring women everywhere that it's okay to eat what your body craves and the heck with anyone who tries to force a diet on you, to diet guru, piously spouting the same tired "hints" that the "experts" have been plugging for decades. Some of Maggie's tips: cut the hot dog in half and fill the rest of the bun with sauerkraut! (Mmm, yummy!) Eat a whole orange instead of a glass of orange juice! Starve yourself for two days anytime the needle on the scale inches a little to the right! The self proclaimed food lover even sits in a gourmet restaurant, reads the dessert menu, and puts it down again. But no, these aren't diet tips, just lifestyle changes. WHATEVER.

Then there was Tex - the best male buddy who supposedly loved Maggie just as she was all along. Oh, really? Then why didn't he profess his love BEFORE she became svelte and gorgeous? Oh, that's right, he was dating Sharon then - the girl that a co-worker refers to as "Legs". Not hard to guess what kind of figure Sharon had, eh? I did giggle at the scene where Maggie and Tex had breakfast after their first night together - Maggie melting butter and scrambling eggs, then going out to buy a loaf of crusty Italian bread ("for him"). At that rate, it's not going to take long for those 30 pounds to go back on, sweetheart. Will you still love yourself then? Will Tex?

I didn't think another book could ever infuriate me as much as "Jemima J" did. Sadly, I was mistaken.

I don't like to write customer reviews that trash an author's hard work. Hopefully, the author of this book won't see this review.

I love to read a variety of genres, especially chick lit for an escape. This book, however, was nearly unreadable for me.

I was disappointed from the start. I found the main character, Maggie O'Leary, to be unlikable. She just seemed abrasive, bitter, and full of herself. There just wasn't anything to like about her. When Maggie talks about herself, she describes herself as insecure because of her weight, but nothing in her personality seems to confirm that. Once I start a book, I like to finish it so I kept going assuming that this might just be a book that takes awhile to get into.

About 60 pages in, when Maggie starts her weight loss plan, I nearly started to enjoy the book. This was shortlived, however. After about five more pages the book got worse. I know you're supposed to suspend disbelief when reading fiction, especially chick lit, but this was ridiculous. I'm supposed to believe that Maggie went on a crash diet and lost enough weight in five weeks to go from the obese champion of fat people everywhere to model thin?

She heads out to Hollywood to help a Ben Affleck-esque movie star understand the mind of an overweight person for an upcoming film role. Everyone she comes across in Hollywood is stunned to find that the "fat columnist" is actually THIN. Yes, thin. Not average, but Hollywood thin. Come on. In five weeks?

To make matters worse, when she meets the movie star she's immediately so comfortable with him that she's patting his knee and talking in double entendres. Not even close to a believable character.

Of course, after two days the movie star falls in love with her. *Insert eye rolling here*

Ugh, I can't go on. This book was just so bad. The character development is unbelievably weak, the dialogue comes straight out of a Lifetime Original Movie, and the story line is just plain ridiculous.

You want a character you can identify with look for Jane Green's books.

Against my better judgment, I found myself finishing this book. There are so many things wrong with it that I don't know where to begin. We immediately jump in and get no backstory about Maggie. I like to know a little bit about the characters but all I could gather was that she was the funny fat woman in the office. She was proud to be overweight but when a chance comes to meet a movie star, she immediately (and unrealistically) loses a lot of weight in a short period of time - and even has plastic surgery like it's no big deal. She goes to LA where she was supposed to consult with the movie actor about being overweight but they never do even discuss it. In the space of two weeks that she is gone, her assistant meets and falls in love with a guy, discovers a new talent for photography and gets a promotion, and finishes her book and it is rejected, all in TWO WEEKS!

I think there could have been a really good story here but it went off in too many tangents. It would have been nice to promote the storyline that you don't have to lose weight or change yourself to win the guy of your dreams or to have a successful career.

I will say I did like a lot of the essays and diet tips but it really wasn't worth reading the whole book for.

This is about the 3rd novel in the chic lit genre that I've read in recent years and each has been worse than the one before. I keep having this sense that there'll be one I'll really like. I sense that I'll enjoy relating to a woman like myself in a parallel version of reality, even if it doesn't match well with this one because even though the heroine works in publishing or some similar industry she can afford Manalo Blaniks (sp?) and such. But every time I'm disappointed at how not only unrealistic but also shallow these are. And they're not funny on top of that!

This one was the worst so far, as I mentioned. The hook from the book's jacket seemed to be that it was about an overweight heroine who is happy with herself nonetheless. But like so much of what's out there in women's culture, she only finds real happiness when she loses the weight.

I know chic lit is about fantasy and escapism, so I'm willing to give the absurd love affair with a movie star aspect of the plot a pass, but I really wished that I'd be impressed with our heroine's supposed wit and other lovable qualities. I never found her jokes or wise cracks funny. And I didn't find her smart or her columns (which appear as vignettes throughout the novel) insightful. In fact, if you haven't had your head buried in the sand for the last few decades, you already know everything about dieting that this so-called science writer reports.

I'm going to agree with another reviewer who said "don't bother." I'm sure there's good chic lit out there but this certainly isn't it.

there was just something a little off about this book. A little spacey. For example, there's a part where the main character decides to give her assistant a camera. Then boom, the assistant has the camera and has pictures published.
I kept feeling like there were paragraphs missing from pages or something.

Don't let the cute cover fool you. Yes, this is your typical overweight woman who loses the weight for a man read. To me, this story is best written by Jane Green, author of "Jemima J". While "Fat Chance" has your basic chick lit plot, sometimes I found it hard to follow and in need of more explanation, i.e., more background and details of the characters. I am an avid chick lit reader and this did not fulfill my expectations. If you must read it, go to the library and not the book store.

I really haven't disliked a book this intensely since, well, ever. The plot is unbeliveable and predictable and boring, the main character is unlikeable and almost none of her motivation or behavior is satisfactorily explained, and the supposedly wonderful column that the main character is famous for is little more than the equivalent of space-filler sidebar content from Shape magazine. I almost laughed out loud when the main character suggested that the column would win a Pulitzer.

The author isn't a bad writer (the food descriptions were nice), but this book felt very ficticious in an obvious way, like the author knew the characters (and their situations -- Can someone who has ever lost a significant amount of weight, or figured out what is truly involved, really believe that it happens in 5 weeks and that 30 pounds is enough to go from noticeably fat to seriously, Hollywood thin?) possibly even less than the readers did, and that the plot was just thrown together to fill the appropriate number of pages.

I'm glad I borrowed this one from the library instead of spending money on it. The idea of this book is great but it just doesn't live up to it. I found the main character Maggie to be unlikeable and uninteresting. The story itself is boring and perdictable. The only good thing about this book is the picture of the pink frosted cupcake on the cover. Save your money and buy dessert instead!

I bought this book because I thought the premise sounded interesting. Turns out, it wasn't so great. The heroine, Maggie, is a life-long dieter who has finally accepted her weight and writes a famous column helping others to do the same. So her losing weight quickly and even having a cosmetic procedure seemed very unrealistic-even with the great motivation of meeting a gorgeous Hollywood hunk. Also, the book started too slowly. I almost gave up on it. It took about 100 pages for Maggie to finally get to Hollywood to meet the hunk, and then it was a letdown when she got there. I expected a grand romance, but it was just a fling, although the author did portray the actor as a pretty nice man. The story's theme of "sometimes what you're looking for is right under your nose" was kind of sweet, but not enough to make me recommend this book to friends. Maybe it's just me, but I also didn't like the author's writing style.