Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp [Hardcover]

Stephanie Klein (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 27, 2008

Stephanie Klein was an eighth grader with a weight problem. It was a problem at school, where the boys called her "Moose," and it was a problem at home, where her father reminded her, "No one likes fat girls." After many frustrating sessions with a nutritionist known as the fat doctor of Roslyn Heights, Long Island, Klein's parents enrolled her for a summer at fat camp. Determined to return to school thin and popular, without her "lard arms" and "puckered ham," Stephanie embarked on a memorable journey that would shape more than just her body. It would shape her life.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With her signature acerbic wit and captivating insight, the author of the wildly popular Straight Up and Dirty offers a powerful and beautifully stark portrait of adolescence

While she is pregnant with twins, one sentence uttered by her doctor sends Stephanie Klein reeling: "You need to gain fifty pounds." Instantly, an adolescence filled with insecurity and embarrassment comes flooding back. Though she is determined to gain the weight for the health of her babies--even if it means she'll "weigh more than a Honda"--she can only express her deep fear by telling her doctor simply, "I used to be fat."

Klein was an eighth grader with a weight problem. It was a problem at school, where the boys called her "Moose," and it was a problem at home, where her father reminded her, "No one likes fat girls." After many frustrating sessions with a nutritionist known as the fat doctor of Roslyn Heights, Long Island, Klein's parents enrolled her for a summer at fat camp. Determined to return to school thin and popular, without her "lard arms" and "puckered ham," Stephanie embarked on a memorable journey that would shape more than just her body. It would shape her life.

In the ever-shifting terrain between fat and thin, adulthood and childhood, cellulite and starvation, Klein shares the cutting details of what it truly feels like to be an overweight child, from the stinging taunts of classmates, to the off-color remarks of her own father, to her thin mother's compulsive dissatisfaction with her own body. Calling upon her childhood diary entries, Klein reveals her deepest thoughts and feelings from that turbulent, hopeful time, baring her soul and making her heartache palpable.

Whether Klein is describing her life as a chubby adolescent camper--getting weighed on a meat scale, petting past curfew, and "chunky dunking" in the lake--or what it's like now as a fit mother, having one-sided conversations with her newborn twins about the therapy they'll one day need, this hilarious yet grippingly vulnerable book will remind you what it was like to feel like an outsider, to desperately seek the right outfit, the right slang, the best comeback, or whatever that unattainable something was that would finally make you fit in.

Marie Claire, for Straight Up and Dirty
"Stephanie Klein’s raw account of divorce at age 29 is refreshingly honest and funny, without delving into cheesy chick-lit territory. You’ll easily relate to Klein--even if you don’t have a 'wasband.'"

USA Today
"Klein is a talented writer who tells the story of her love life with boldness and irreverence."

Publishers Weekly
"Klein’s sense of humor is downright wicked . . . a great, fun read."

New York Times
"Nothing, it seems, is too private not to share with . . . Ms. Klein’s legions of followers. And that is exactly how they like it."

People
"You could call her ‘a real-life Carrie Bradshaw,’ but it wouldn’t do Klein justice. With a fearless voice, the blogger weaves a memoir filled with heartbreak and humor . . . a compelling writer."

Kirkus Reviews
"Candid . . . inspiring . . . With vivid characterizations, spot-on locale descriptions and sly jokes at her own expense, Klein offers an original and touching take on the all-too-common problem of childhood obesity."

Elle, for Straight Up and Dirty
"Klein’s appeal comes not just from her nocturnal wonderings, but from her relentless plumbing of what went wrong in her twenties and how those mistakes inform her present."

Daily News, for Straight Up and Dirty
"[Stephanie Klein’s] confessional, intimate writing style has a magnetic and often voyeuristic appeal that transcends the gloss of her Sex and the City-style escapades."

Susan Shapiro, author of Lighting Up, for Straight Up and Dirty
"A kooky, heartfelt, and ultimately triumphant chronicle of young divorce and the importance of family, friends, and a good shrink."

Marie Claire (UK), for Straight Up and Dirty
"Beneath the wisecracking tales of solo supermarket shopping, phone therapy and Hamptons houseshares, the raw emotion about her divorce and nightmare mother-in-law rings true."

From Publishers Weekly

When Klein (Straight Up and Dirty) becomes pregnant and is instructed to gain weight, she flashes back to the years of trying to reduce. As an overweight eight-year-old, she was told, You will struggle with this for the rest of your life. Eventually, she got fed up with what she calls fatnalysis and her only concern was how to get thin. Yet the emotional distance of her mother, the cutting remarks of her father and a severe beating by her aunt explain why she felt her body was too big to hold the nothing that was in me. In school, fat meant unpopular, not unhealthy. Even her father laughs when hearing Klein's nickname, Moose. At 13, she attended fat camp, where girls holding their own rolls of fat made me feel less alone. Klein movingly relates the humiliation she endured from other campers and her flirtation with bulimia. But in the end, the narrative is less of a journey than a slog. While capturing the agonies of the unpopular, Klein succinctly sums up society's attitude to overweight women. But the insights are obvious: society is cruel to fat kids, and kind to thin ones. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060843292
• ISBN-13: 978-0060843298
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,065,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A foodie who sometimes abuses hair care products, STEPHANIE KLEIN is an acclaimed writer and photographer with a cult-like following. Her work has been published internationally in the UK, Europe, India, Australia, Japan, China, and elsewhere, and her blog, Greek Tragedy, is visited by more than 400,000 readers a month. Klein's photography is on permanent exhibit in New York's Hotel Gansevoort. Her first memoir, Straight Up and Dirty, is currently in development as a half-hour comedy series. While she enjoys living in Austin, Texas, with her husband and twin son and daughter, she'll always be a New Yorker.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The overweight child in us never goes away... April 22, 2008

By Thomas Duff HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

If you grew up as the "chubby" or "fat" kid on the block, you'll understand and relate immediately to Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp by Stephanie Klein. I could definitely relate...

Contents:
Part 1: Baby Fat
Part 2: Weigh of Life; Sabotaje; Sloppy Seconds; Bay of Pigs; Your Worth In Weight; Blame It On the Rain; Shrinkwrapped; Mamma Mia; When Even "Misfit" Misfits; American Pie; Hurts So Good; Are You There, God? It's Me, Pound Cake; Caught; Inside Out; Tall Takes and Heroes
Part 3: Moose; To Fat and Back; The Hate Diet; Father Figurative; The Mother Load

This is an actual "memoir" of the author and the five years she spent at various fat camps. She was overweight as a child, and struggled (like we all do) with acceptance and self-worth issues. Her parents sent her to the camps to learn better eating habits and to get more exercise. The style is somewhat unique, in that she blends all the camps, friends, counselors, and enemies into a single fictional camp over one summer. As she states up front, names and some details have been combined and modified to protect the innocent, but everything in the book actually did happen. Things like falling in and out of love numerous times, sneaking out of camp with friends to have a food binge, and learning how to make oneself vomit in order to get rid of the food gorging that just took place. Throughout the book, you get a peek into the mind of an overweight child who desperately wants to be accepted for who she is, but is constantly judged by how much weight she carries. Her obsession with weight continues on to this day, manifesting in issues such as not wanting to gain any weight while pregnant for fear she'll once again be fat. Part 3 of the book does get more into her adult attitudes and issues, but you realize they're still tied back to that overweight child being shipped off to fat camp. No matter how thin she gets, in her mind she's destined to always be "fat".

Having been that fat kid myself, I could identify and relate to many of her experiences. Unlike her, I'm still fighting my weight problem on the upper end of the scale. But that self-image of the short fat kid is always there, and will probably never go away. Moose is well-written and worth reading. If you've never grown up with weight issues, you'll begin to understand what those of us who did went through. And if you *were* the fat kid, this may be a way for you to step back and realize that those times are gone and you've grown up.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Marvelous Book May 27, 2008

By R. A. Taylor VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Moose, A Memoir of Fat Camp by Stephanie Klein was truly a remarkable book. I was so impressed by the author's honesty in telling about her experiences of being an overweight preteen and teen. Her descriptions of the embarrassment and anger felt by the rejection and names she was called was convincing. I could identify with so much of what was written, the poor body image, the pain of not being accepted just for who you are. I believe that most women have a poor body image; we obsess about those areas that aren't "perfect" and fail to recognize what is good about our bodies. It's good to read that these feelings are shared by others.
The only fault I felt with the book was the jumping around from the past to the present and not making it entirely clear what time we were reading about. But with a little extra concentration I would easily work out what the author was talking about.

I feel this is an important book for anyone with weight issues. Her discussion of various eating disorders was extremely interesting. I think teenagers especially should read this book to find they are not alone in their feelings.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MMoose - more than fat campmemoir July 3, 2008

By Rosemary Mazurek

Format:Hardcover

As a psychotherapist I read Moose expecting it to be helpful in understanding some of my clients who were heavy during adolescence and still carry the stigma, fighting inappropriate eating daily. It was so much more. The story is intersting and at times funny. It captures the feelings of being an adolescent who is awkward and a little different; someone who is not in the popular group. Klein does a great job of decribing her parents reaction to her weight issue and their subtle messages as well as direct and great advice. It is well-written, descriptive and openly describes the emotions of most adolescents.