I am the internet's token fat girl

It's been a long time since I accepted a book for review. I had been burned way too many times, so when I got an email asking me if I wanted to read this book called Fat Girl Walking I side-eyed it a bit. But then I saw it was from a publisher I recognize (HarperCollins) so I thought sure, I'll give this a try. Made the right choice. Good job, me! (Oh also, thanks Harper for being awesome and asking me if I wanted a copy of this in exchange for a review.)

Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons aka Brittany Herself is a bit of a mouthful for a title. But I very much like what they did with the cover and the text. Reminds me a lot of Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman and Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened covers. Good company to be in. It's a memoir where Brittany talks about her life growing up fat*, how her weight was a central part to how she developed, how she sees herself, and ultimately what she's doing now. She has a pretty successful blog. She was on Good Morning America wearing a bikini in Time Square. She gave a TED Talk that got a standing ovation. That's some pretty snazzy stuff.

I feel like I sort of made this sound like a feel-good type memoir and while yeah, I guess it DOES make you feel good and it encourages you to love you, it does it by being hilarious, which is what I need in my memoirs. There are a lot of embarrassing moments (sex-ed classes at a Christian school can cause some interesting/sad misunderstandings). The comparison to Jenny Lawson's book goes beyond just the cover; the two are very similar in terms of style and even content. Sure, Gibbon's book features way less taxidermy but if you like one, you're likely to enjoy the other. And her weight isn't the ONLY thing discussed. Her father is hit by a truck and suffers brain-damage when she's a kid. She has a bit of a breakdown in college that results in her never leaving the house. I realize those are dark things, but she handles them so well. Probably because she got some great advice from her grandmother:

You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger.

So yeah, good stuff.

As part of this review, they also gave me an excerpt to share so you can get a flavor of her style. And I can just copy and paste this instead of having to copy out a bunch of quotes, which is probably what I would have ended up doing instead.

NOW WHAT? 

My fitness and body aspirations at thirty are different from my aspirations at twenty. At twenty, I just assumed I’d work out until I was so tiny, people became concerned for my health and I’d roll my eyes at them from my Victoria’s Secret bras and Abercrombie jeans. Now I just want to maintain my current weight so I don’t need to buy new clothes. When you look at weight loss, it’s often clothing driven. Weddings, vacations, and high school reunions, all things you are supposed to be thin for. But what if you have a gorgeous wedding dress in your current size, loads of flattering bathing suits, and a killer pair of jeans? Starving myself has suddenly become a moot point. I have options; I’m no longer a fashion pariah. So where does that leave my weight? Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your business. 

I like to put good food in my mouth, and while I am aware of the calories I ingest, instead of cutting them I make them count. I have a full-on love affair with food, appreciating the different cultures and processes within it. In fact, I take entire vacations around eating. It’s how I remember where I’ve been; I’ve either eaten, thrown up, or started my period without the proper supplies there. 

Beignets with my best friend in New Orleans. Too much rum on the beaches of Playa del Carmen on our second honeymoon. Orlando, Florida, the city of emergency men’s tube sock maxi-pads. 

You see, these flabby parts aren’t problem areas; they’re parts of a scrapbook.

I can see this being a book I revisit, even if I haven't had the same issues with weight that Brittany tackles throughout. You don't need to be exactly like her for this book to be relatable and entertaining.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go check out her TED Talk.

Gif Rating:

You also have an opportunity to win a copy of the book. So that's neat.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Or you could buy it, either from your local bookstore, or here are a couple links:
HarperCollins, Barnes & Nobel, Amazon.

Title quote from page 2

Gibbons, Brittany. Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It. Dey St, 2015.

*I honestly had trouble writing "fat" instead of "overweight" or some other word here, which is stupid because fat shouldn't be a bad word and IT'S RIGHT IN THE DAMN TITLE. Stupid society.

I'm a winner!

Back in March I won Kayleigh's giveaway of Ryu Murakami's In The Miso Soup along with a bunch of goodies from her trip to Japan which was SUPER EXCITING! The package finally got here. Or rather it got here on Monday but since I was not home to sign for it, I had to wait until Saturday to pick it up from the post office. But that has happened and now I have it and everything is wonderful. Wondering what it included? Of course you are!

Look at all the treats! There's so much chocolate here.

There's the book. Obviously.

A GORGEOUS origami bookmark from the Sapporo museum

Cookies & cream panda Pocky

There were 2 of the Cadbury Marvelous Creations eggs but I ate one immediately. In part because I can't control myself. In other part because the package was sitting in the car for awhile and while you can't tell in the picture, that other egg is entirely melted. The other was worse so I HAD to eat it. 

That cute bear tin ALSO full of chocolate

Yubari melon candies that are from a melon only grown in that area so suuuper fancy

Green tea and sakura blossom Kit Kat which I am totally not sharing with anyone. Sorry, Boyfriend+

Lil' origami fish

A white rabbit Alice in Wonderland sticker

Things that look like match books but are actually MORE CHOCOLATE. As the package says "Not flammable, but eatable" 

Kayleigh, thank you! This is awesome. And I can feel myself coming down from the first sugar high, so I should probably have some more candy.

Birthday Giveaway Winner!

A winner has been chosen in the I'm-now-30-so-someone-gets-to-win-one-of-my-favorite-books-and-you'd-better-enjoy-it-or-I-will-be-sad-but-no-pressure.

And the winner is....

LAURA!

So, let me know which book you want and it shall be yours!

Shades of Grey giveaway winner

I took everyone's name that entered the Shades of Grey giveaway and I put all the names in a hat. Then I asked Boyfriend+ to pick one of the names so we would have our winner. He asked for a cut so I asked him if that meant he'd take take a few pages out of the book. I talked him out of it but know you almost had to call him to get the last pages.

And the winner is...

Mariana @ And so it goes...

I'll shoot you an email, get your address, and then this book will be yours!!

If anyone is sad they didn't win, blame Boyfriend+. Or Franzen. Cos it's October and I plan on blaming Franzen a lot this month.

What do you do with multiple copies of books?

Do you ever find you have multiple copies of the same book? Maybe you forgot you already had a copy? Maybe you're combining bookshelves? Maybe you just REALLY like that story and feel the need to have all the copies?

I was sitting on the floor near one of our bookshelves the other day, scanning the shelves with Boyfriend+'s books, and I saw some of his Shakespeare. Because like me, Boyfriend+ can't throw out any of his books, including those he bought for class. And I realized we have a LOT of copies of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then I started going through to find what other books we had multiple copies of. Here's some of what I found.

6 copies of Midsummer.
This is mostly my fault. I have a problem.

From top to bottom we have:
-Boyfriend+'s copy from the Folger Library*
-A copy in both English and Italian. Because why not
-An Arden copy, which my Grandmother got me for my 14th birthday (I don't have that good of memory but she wrote Happy Birthday and the date on the first page)
-A copy of The Complete Comedies
-A Complete Works that one of my university classes made me buy because she insisted we couldn't use smaller books. I used smaller books the entire semester. TAKE THAT, SOCIETY
-A First Folio copy my good friend got me when he visited London. (I've since acquired As You Like It and Hamlet as well)

2 copies of The Great Gatsby
Or 3 if you consider we also have a poster made up of the text of the book. Plus Boyfriend+ and I each have the same copy. And neither of us our willing to give up "our" book.

4 copies of The Odyssey
2 are Boyfriend+'s. 2 are mine. I had a professor insist we buy a specific version for his class but I already owned one. And in all fairness, I liked that translation better than the one I already owned, so fine. I don't know why he has so many.

2 copies each of The Iliad and The Aeneid 
We each have our own copies of these 2. And I swear I had a different version of The Iliad at some point. But I can't find it so maybe 2 1/4?

3 copies of Shades of Grey
Not 50 shades. This is the Fforde book. We don't know how many shades. Just more than one.
This was the second book I bought on my Kindle because I wanted to read it RIGHT NOW. And then I found a paperback copy on sale and I really wanted a copy for my shelf. And then my friend (he who bought me Midsummer cos he knows me really well) found a hardback copy on sale and picked it up for me.

And now I have a copy FOR YOU! He actually gave this to me awhile ago so I could do this giveaway except then I couldn't figure out a reason for giveaway post. I have a tendency to forget birthdays, including blog birthdays, so that didn't happen. I haven't read any new Fforde to use that as an excuse. I thought about just giving it away and then never wrote that post either. But now this is a good excuse!

So this is open to anyone. Just leave your name and email address in the comments and, in a week? Let's say a week, I'll randomly pick a winner!


*I actually really like their copies. If you're looking for Shakespeare, I recommend these guys

And the winner is...

Oh hey I did a giveaway!! I mean granted I sort of hid it in my book signing post which was only kind of on purpose.

Who won a copy of Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess)? Alice from Reading Rambo

Exciting, right? She managed to beat Laura from Devouring Texts who was the only other person to ask for the book but who unfortunately lives far enough away that I could gold plate the book for the money it would cost to send it her way and thus was not actually eligible.

She actual gets an extra bonus with this book. See, I found myself with an extra copy because I pre-ordered the book, then learned that Lawson was going to be in NYC but my copy wouldn't show up in time for the signing. So I bought a new copy. The reason I pre-ordered the book instead of just waiting for it to come out was because Jenny Lawson was signing book plates and the first 3000 people would get one and I had to get in on that. So Alice, you also get a signed book plate thingy.

Congrats Alice! I'll send you your book sometime in the next 6 months.

Reaping the benefits of a book giveaway

I got a mystery package the other day.  I didn't remember ordering anything and it was in a normal padded envelope with a handwritten return address.  Perhaps I should have been more cautious with such things but I'm pretty sure I made an off-handed comment about how I hope there was no anthrax in it as I opened the envelope.  A book fell out.  I was thinking to myself that I should continue to open packages from strangers.  Then I remembered I was the benefactor of someone else's book giveaway. 

Back in mid-December, Ben from Dead End Follies tweeted that the first person to answer him back would get a free book.  I love free and I happened to be doing nothing better with my Saturday than sitting online so I won that contest.  Ben won the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson in a giveaway but already had a copy so was kind enough to put me in touch with Elise.  Hooray for more books!

Since getting my Kindle I've bought 1 eBook, Bryson's At Home and acquired 4 actual books: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore, Soul of the Age by Jonathan Bate and now Speak.  Thus far the eReader has done nothing to quell the number of books I'm buying.  

This also makes me want to get to hosting my own giveaway soon.  If anyone has any tips for a giveaway, please let me know!