Customer Reviews

Life in the Fat Lane

5 star:		(112)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

OK, I confess: I'm a 30 - year old mother with a career, and I'm still reading teenage fiction. How sad is that? Not at all, actually, when it's written as well as this book. Imagine: you are lovely Lara, Little Miss Popular, Homecoming Queen. Life is sweet. Mammy's rich and Daddy is good looking. Your boyfriend is deep and sensitive(even if not quite as popular as the one you dumped last year). You are friends with the cool crowd and wonder on occasions if your best friend Molly, who has a tendency to speak her mind and carries a few pounds too many, matches up. But you are a good girl, who offers Molly and other plump unfortunates condescending advice on how to improve themselves. And then you get fat. Not just a little overweight, but really, massively fat.Even without eating anything .Your positive attitude and discipline don't seem to help. Suddenly you are at the receiving end of pitying glances and "helpful" advice.You are no longer cool or cute. Your boyfriend still loves you but"just isn't in love anymore..." This excellent and inventive book deals with the inner turmoil of a Prom Queen's descent into fat hell. What I liked best was that the author resolutely refuses all easy cop outs. Lara now knows how fat people feel, but it makes her no wiser.The fat girl that she has patronised doesn't suddenly become her best friend. No, she visits Lara in hospital and gloats at her misfortune. Lara doesn't fall in love with the fat boy at her new school, they don't go on a diet and live happily ever after. But Lara does learn to live with her condition and learns a few hard lessons in the process. The quality of the writing is superb. All in all, a worthwhile book not only for adolescents.

I was looking forward to reading this book because it dealt with a topic that's very personal to me: being thin for most of your life and then suddenly gaining a lot of weight due to having a metabolic disorder. This happened to me a few years ago, and I was recently put on medication for my problem. I've never let my change in appearance get me down, though, and I was anticipating reading a story which featured a plus-sized heroine who isn't defined by her looks.

Boy, was I disappointed. Though the book is well-written, I found the narrator, Lara, to be incredibly shallow and conceited. And it pained me that all she did was whine about being "huge" and no longer popular. Yes, it's understandable that she'd be concerned about gaining so much weight in such a short amount of time - who wouldn't be worried about their body going through a drastic change? - but I wish some of her and her parents' concerns had been about her health (potential heart problems, etc.) I also didn't think the story sent out a positive message to the age group that it's intended for. We only see Lara kinda-sorta come to terms with being plus-sized in the very last chapter. Until then, she's resigned to being an "unattractive" outcast .. and when she "accepts" herself, it's mainly because it's suggested that she's on her way to becoming "normal" again. So, did Lara even really learn anything? It's hard to say. As far as I could tell, she was still judgmental and shallow even at the end of the story.

I wish that we'd seen more of an evolution of her going from hating herself to finding ways to love the new her. Instead of shipping her off to a new town to start over, it would've been much more interesting if Lara had decided to stick it to her snobby friends by adapting to her changes rather than wallowing in how unlucky she was. What if she'd done something like run for class president? Or became a plus-size model? Or had done something throughout the course of the book to demonstrate how she was growing accustomed to her new self. One thing I've learned is that you really are treated in the way that your attitude reflects. Yes, it's a cliche, but it's a good one. And this book was just immersed in negativity.

I'm not entirely sure what to think of this book.

On the one hand, I like the premise of the story. "Life in the Fat Lane" deals with a girl who is suddenly faced with circumstances beyond her control. Because of these circumstances, her friends desert her; and she goes from being part of the "in crowd" to being a walking target for their abuse. (As a former target myself, I've experienced such abuse firsthand.)

On the other hand, I have a difficult time sympathizing with Lara. I can *pity* her--when her friends turn against her, when she's being taunted at her new school, or for her awful family situation--but what I *can't* do is particularly like or even respect her. She acts as if it's her deity-given right to be admired and envied. When she starts gaining weight, she moans about how fat she is (even at 5'7" and 128#)--a trend that continues throughout the book. When she's scorned by her false friends and held in contempt by her appearance-conscious parents, she blames her own weight rather than their blatant superficiality.

Even when you finally think that she should have done some growing up, she turns around and acts petty again: For example, even at her heaviest, she never loses her mild contempt for anyone *else* who's fat. All in all, she's barely less of a vain, self-absorbed prima donna than the spoiled girls who mock her.

In short, "Life in the Fat Lane" would have been vastly improved by a less annoying and static heroine. Most of the other characters, with a few notable exceptions such as Jett and Molly, are cardboard cutouts. (Patty's smugly spiteful response to Lara's weight gain was especially unnecessary.) Making Lara a stronger character--or at least, more than an incessant whine attached to a metabolic disorder--would have been a coup on Ms. Bennett's part.

I was so disappointed with this book. It's absolutely filled with fat hatred! I spent chapter after chapter reading Lara say terrible things about being fat, and she only barely begins to stop doing it in the last chapter. I would never, ever give this book to an overweight young girl. I honestly think it could be damaging.

What's the horrible part about this book? Well truthfully there is no horrible part really. Just the way the characters have the nerve to act. But that's what makes this such a moving, gripping book. The issues delt with in this book, although they may seem a little far fetched (does anyone really gain 100 pounds in less than a year? ), are REAL issues. Popularity, revenge, and bad family life are things most teenagers deal with every day. I loved this book and I think others will too.

As a twelve-year-old eighth-grader who has never had a weight problem, I can't fully understand what Lara Ardeche, perfect homecoming queen turned overweight and confused, would be going through. Lara has always been the talk of the school. Before she was diagnosed with "Axell-Crowne Syndrome", she had the perfect parents, perfect boyfriend, perfect looks, perfect grades, perfect friends...everything that turned out to be not so perfect. After she was diagnosed with the syndrome and started gaining weight, she was still the talk of the school, but in a way which you cannot imagine, unless, of course, you read this novel. "Life In the Fat Lane" is not down to the tiniest detail unrealistic. The way students behave is perfectly described in this book, nothing more could be said. The language, thoughts, and worries of Lara and her peers all add up to make a fantastic novel...a novel that makes you think, makes you change your ways, and makes you never want to put it down again.

As I flipped through "Life in the Fat Lane" I realized that being thin isn't everything. I was moved to tears many times while reading this wonderful novel. I found myself seeing how I was hurting my body while trying to lose weight. I've always been over weight and when I heard of this book I told myself that I would read it and take its information into consideration. Being from a small town where you find yourself out of work unless you look "good" is hard especially when you are a teenager. This book by Cherie Bennett made me realize that you don't have to look like a model for someone to care about you. In our society we tend to judge people on how they look, this book tells us that even the fattest person could have been Prom Queen, Model looking, or beautiful at one time. I have now tryed not to get down on myself when I find something doesn't fit, or I feel fat, whatever the case may be. It takes a lot to change many years of socie! ty saying, "NO you can't do this" and "NO you can't wear that", all because of the way you look. Thanks a lot Cherie for writting a book that made me see the light!

"Life in the Fat Lane" must be considered some sort of modern demi-classic, judging by its presence on my daughter's fall high-school reading list and the fact that it has been made into a script for youth theatre groups. Curious, I read it myself first, and was painfully disappointed. It's shallow "chick lit" for teens, and worse: Although the story (of a slim and beautiful "Queen Bee" who becomes involuntarily fat due to a [fictional] medical diagnosis) purports to be a "character counts" Message Book, the loathing poured out onto fat girls by the characters in the book (including the protagonist) would, I'd think, be actually damaging to young readers who are heavy themselves. The narrator doesn't gain much in self-esteem by the end of the book, just decides philosophically to become an arty type and excel at music. The book's portrayal of high schoolers is no deeper or more literary than any junk teen flick; everyone is sketched as a stereotype and portrayed purely through physical type (and the ancillary characters of parents, teachers and siblings are pure cardboard).

So...as a friend and fellow parent asked when contemplating this mediocrity on the hallowed Reading List: "Were all the copies of 'Jane Eyre' burned?"

I realy enjoyed reading Life in the Fat Lane. In fact, it is one of my favourite books. Basically, it is my worst nightmare. The cutest, most popular girl at school, Lara Ardeche, begins to gain weight for an unknown reason. The cause is later found to be Axell - Crowne Sydrom, which makes the person retain water and gain weight. SInce there is no known cure, Lara's life must go on, even as she balloons up to 218 pounds. Lara soon discovers things about her family that she never knew, and realizes that even when she was thin and a beauty pageant winner, her life was not perfect. What I like about this book is that while it deals with a serious subject, it is often funny and does not preach. As Lara's views begin to change, it is clear to the reader what she thinks and feels. I recommend this book.

Lara Ardeche has it all-popularity, a cool boyfriend, a great best friend,and a size 1.Things are great-that is until she gains weight-and not just 1 or 2 pounds. Not only that but it won't stop. It's every teen's worst nightmare come true. Join Lara as she learns about how life is-in the Fat Lane.This was a great book.The characters are realistic and believeable.I found that all the characters were like people that you meet in every day life, they could be you, someone like you or someone you know. Lara is who every girl wants to be and at the same time how every girl should learn to be without having to have a tremendous weight gain.It's a perfect example of how our society is unaccepting of people with weight problems.This book really makes you think twice about how you treat people because tommorow it could be you.Sometimes people forget that and this book is a good reminder.When I read this book it remeinded me a lot of how my school is,from Patty Asher-the school'! s overweight girl that everyone makes fun of to Molly the slightly overweight girl who is pressured to lose weight even though she's perfectly healthy to Lara and the in crowd who makes it hard for everyone.I would recommend this book to anyone because it helps you to see that size is only a number.