cover image Do I Look Fat in This?: Life Doesn't Begin Five Pounds from Now

Do I Look Fat in This?: Life Doesn't Begin Five Pounds from Now

Jessica Weiner, . . Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $19.50 (208pp) ISBN 978-1-4169-1357-3

Motivational speaker Weiner (A Very Hungry Girl ) recovered from an eating disorder and has coined the term "Actionist" to describe what she does—motivating and inspiring people to take action in their everyday lives. This volume reads like a manual, helping young women to decode what Weiner calls "the Language of Fat." She writes perceptively about how girls and women bond over expressions of self-loathing for their bodies ("I noticed just how hard it was to stay intimate with my girlfriends if I wasn't body-loathing beside them") and argues that the simple words "I feel fat!" mask an internal world of insecurity and pain. While the book is full of advice, tools for change and action steps toward healthy self-acceptance, it's also clumsily written, studded with clichéd subheadings and random upbeat quotes. However, Weiner's style could work well for young women ages 15 to 25, who have barely begun to question the negative messages being hurled at them by their families, boyfriends, the media and other women—and who believe, as some have said to Weiner, that their lives won't begin until they are thin. (Feb.)