Fat Chick by Lorraine Duffy Merkl

We meet Trish Collins as she is on top of her world.  Finally, a perfect size zero, she has a great job at an ad agency representing TREND, the most sought-after fashion magazine.  She has a great relationship with her boyfriend, who is also the personal trainer who helped her get a toned and muscular body.  She isn't hurting for anything....

The book then goes back and portrays Trish's life when she was fat.  Losing her father early, she stuffed her pain with food.  She continues to eat until she is large, every taunt and male rejection just fueling her appetite as she turns again and again to the friend that never rejects, food.

Finally, she has had enough and decides this is the time she will make a real difference.  She joins a program, joins a gym, and over months, gets thin and thinner and thinner.  Her life is now perfect, or is it?

Lorraine Duffy Merkl has created a woman that will find a touchpoint with most women.  Most of us have wished for thinner bodies or wished we were even thinner, typing our self-worth to how many pounds show on the scale and what size we can buy in the department store.  She shows Trish's struggles with sterotypical rejections and then flips the mirror and shows the pros and cons of being super-thin.  The writing is breezy and the characters sometimes shallow, but this is intentional on the author's part as she shows the archtypes that rule women's places in society.   This book is recommended for women readers and males that want to understand the enormous part weight and self-image play in almost every woman's life.