While many women writers are leaning toward a brand of feminism that links all women by making sweeping and often suffocating generalizations, Mona Awad insists on difference. She grants Lizzie, her female main character, intense specificity, making her a crucial addition to the fat girl story. She is dark and snarky, sometimes full of self-loathing, completely judgmental of even her closest friends, and always based on their size. During a time when novels about fat girls focus so greatly on what it means to be hated and marginalized, character can become secondary, with a recognizable identity as a stand-in for any authentic personality. My father has always felt that being fat was a choice. When I was in college I would sometimes meet him for lunch or coffee, and he would stare at my extra flesh like it was some weird piece of clothing I was wearing just to annoy him. Like my fat was an elaborate turban or zombie tiara or some anarchy flag that, in my impetuous youth, I was choosing to hold up and wave in his face. Not really part of me, just something I was doing to rebel, prove him wrong.
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Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission. I am fat. You might get past that after you get to know me. One of my earliest memories is my grandmother, who would produce hundreds of homemade flour tortillas, and dozens of enchiladas swimming in cheesy, red chile sauce out of a kitchen the size of the walk-in closet of my last house in America. I tried to fill in the dimples of my cheeks with Play-Doh but it kept falling off.
BODY IMAGE + MENTAL HEALTH COACHING
Jesus, Jes, I really really like this. If there's anything I can add, it would be that nobody likes how they look in photos - at first. Photographs are the easiest way to take account of all of our physical "flaws" in one go; and those perceived flaws are different in all of us. It may take time, but the more you do it, the more you will come to look at your own body as a work of art. Like the abstract painting, you find new meaning and sensuality in the lines of your body; a photographer and I use the term loosely, anyone with a camera will do has captured you as a work of art, and you will come to appreciate your body as such. So many of my friends shy away from my camera because they say they don't like how they photograph, that it brings up their body issues. I want to take their picture because I think they're beautiful, and I just wish more of them would give me the chance to help them change their minds!!
My husband had quite a late start in his career; he will be almost 40 by the time he starts residency so I feel we are already way behind in that sense, but also he has had a very hard time getting into residency as he went to med school outside the US. That is the million dollar question. She still has another year of residency but I am hoping she chooses a specialty that is not as demanding on her time.