CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FAT GIRL, Liza Palmer

First of all, I'd like to say that I have been the "silent partner" around here for far too long. Life has been pitching lemons at me pretty darn fast, and I somehow lost my lemonade recipe. Those yellow things almost rotted while I tried to figure out a way to use them to my advantage. Thankfully, I've got a full complement of people around me that waited patiently for me to dig out my favorite cookbooks and figure out how to make a lemon torte. It was fabulous. And now I'm even starting to remember how to fire up my laptop and do this book review thing. Thanks, Charity, for holding it together as usual, while I plod away the hours and days (and weeks!) making sense of my life.

But really, I'm here to tell you about THIS BOOK, CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FAT GIRL, by Liza Palmer. I picked it up in Dallas, during the RWA National Convention. I met the beautiful author, and she even signed it for me. So, I'm just telling you right now that you are not getting MY copy of this book. Sorry.

Check out this BCC...

Maggie and Olivia have been best friends since they were in grade school. Both overweight, they befriended each other when no one else would. Now grown up, Maggie is still shopping in the euphemism-if-there-ever-was-one "women's section", while Olivia went and had gastric bypass surgery in search of the elusive size 4, the holy grail for women everywhere. So now Olivia's thin and blond and getting married to a handsome surgeon, and Maggie is the fat bridesmaid, again, in charge of planning "The Shower" and keeping Olivia's secret: that she's really a fat girl in a thin body. Ain't life grand?
With wit and wisdom, Liza Palmer gives voice to women everywhere who wish for just once that they could forget about their weight.

Checking it over, the only thing that I don't like is that it sounds a bit light, compared to the story. But it is actually very accurate, so no complaints from me on this one.

I'm not going to give away any plot points or secrets with this one. I'm not going to tell you my favorite part, or my least favorite part. Wait, I will tell you my least favorite - the end. No, I don't mean that the end was bad. I mean that the book ended. It ended, and I was sad, because I really LOVE Maggie.

This is a very well written book, that deals with so many different things that I can't even describe them all. It's got a great cast of characters in it that all seem so real, you can mix them up with people in your own life like I did. There is even the hint of a romance. But at the core of it all? Well, there's Maggie.

What's not to love about a woman named Maggie? (I have a daughter with the same name. No, not Margaret. Maggie. I LOVE THIS NAME!) Maggie has been bigger than most everyone else for as long as she can remember. She sees the world through her own special lens, in which she constantly judges how other people will react to her. She has a mile-high wall around herself, to make sure that nobody gets close enough to hurt her. It's painful to see at first, because though this story is written in First POV, you can see from the reactions she gets from people around her that the way she sees herself is very different from the way the world sees her.

Maggie has been working a dead end job for two too many years. She's wasting her Master's Degree at a coffeehouse run by a jerk of a boss, with a pseudo-surrogate mother figure who craves attention and a ditzy wanna-be actress as her co-workers. And then there's Dominic, the 28 year old busboy.

Maggie has a teeny tiny crush on Dominic. She loathes her boss, but craves his approval. She adores her mother and slightly envies her older sister. She wonders where she fits in to her now-skinny best friend's life. And she hates her "Area", that section of her body that she just knows is the center of everyone's attention any time she enters a room. Maggie has a lot to learn.

And well, she does. But I'm not telling you anymore about it. I can't. Because I want you to buy it for yourself, and sink your teeth into it like it was something out of a pink pastry box. It's just that good. Trust me!

This is, by far, my favorite book that I've read from my RWANats stash so far. It wasn't on the top of my TBR pile when I got home. I had to wade through dozens of books before it made its way to my hands. Most of those other books were decent. I may even dish a few of them. But this book? I truly regret not reading it sooner. I regret even more that I finished it as fast as I did. It was gorgeous and strong, sassy and fearless, funny and beautiful, all at the same time.

Just like Maggie.

Go order this book today. It's one Conversation you really shouldn't miss!

Keep Turning Those Pages!