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Dec 19, 2008

Teresa rated it:

Okay, the only reason this book is getting two stars is because it kept me entertained enough to keep turning the pages, but having said that, I pretty much hated this book. I've read a lot of fat books in my day, and this is the first one where I was left completely uninspired. There was no humor, no irony, and really no message at all. I really don't like the idea of teenage girls reading this book, because either way I think this book could actually egg on the stereotype that girls are onl More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 28, 2008

Esther rated it:

I thought this book partially illustrates the society's obsession with appearances and how it's affecting women all around the world.
Life in the Fat Lane is about a teenage prom queen who seems to have it all. Suddenly, she rapidly gains weight and tips the scale to an unbearable number, motivating her to do whatever it takes to return to her original figure. It doesn't help that her mother, who is also thin-obsessed, pressures her daughter to lose weight and gives dieting me More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 05, 2011

Emily (You Are Beautiful) rated it:

Concept/Ideas: 5/5
Characters: 3.5/5
Storyline/Plot: 5/5
Overall Rating 5/5 stars

Wow, this book was amazing. This book actually being a reprint of an older version published in 1998, Ive never heard of this book. I loved it from page one, to the very end. The plot was very original. Who would have ever thought someone would write a novel about a BEAUTY QUEEN ending up being the one to be the "fat girl" in high school. Exactly. Very original in my opinion.
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Oct 03, 2011

Hylary rated it:

Originally posted on my blog: http://libraryladyhylary.blogspot.com ! Check it out for more reviews!

Junior in high school, Lara Ardeche, has the perfect life. Beautiful, popular and thin, Lara has spent her life competing in and winning beauty pageants. Her beautiful, thin mother and handsome father adore her, as does her cool boyfriend Jett and her best friend, Molly. Lara's life becomes even better when she is elected homecoming queen, despite the fact that she's just a junior. In More...

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Jan 05, 2011

Natasha rated it:

I read this book about 8 years ago. It's a young adult book and I would not recommend it to male readers. It's a simple read. Life in the Fat Lane is about that perfect girl who is beautiful and slim. She has everything going for her including being one of the most popular girls at school. She isn't snobby or conceited, but you have that sense that she knows she is a little better than other girls. Then all of a sudden she starts gaining weight for no reason at all. Some sort of weight gaining i More...

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Dec 16, 2010

Barky rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Aug 18, 2010

lanie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Mar 23, 2010

Alexa added it

Reading the book "Life in the Fat Lane" by Cherie Bennett I learned it is a book that can connect to a girl's everyday life. Lara Ardeche is your ordinary girl,just like us she goes through stress to become her perfect self.Many girls in America currently face the pressures to be as thin as possible. By dieting,exercising and possibly obtaining a disease,everyday women try to overcome their idea of being fat or overweight. In this book, Lara is your perfect beauty pageant teenager u More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 11, 2010

Tabitha rated it:

While this book brought up some very good issues about how terrible overweight people are treated, I found it preachy and many times got irritated with Lara's whining.

I can understand that she's feeling sorry for herself because she used to be a beauty queen and now she's one hundred pounds overweight. But I don't want to read that same thing a zillion times, right up to the end of the book. It made me lose sympathy for Lara, and by the end of the book I thought she was a stuck up b More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2009

Julie rated it:

A few years ago, one of my students borrowed this book from my pile of public library discards and loved it so much that she wrote a really touching letter to the author about how much it affected her. I stumbled across it again and accidentally sat down and read the whole thing. A few hours later, I was wondering why. It's not like it was good, really. It was just SO JR. HIGH. It's like every teeny-bopper book every published POINT. Do you girls remember? It was cheesy, and it was a page More...

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Nov 03, 2011

712idalia rated it:

Life in the fat lane was a great book to read. This book is by Cherie Bennett. This book is about a beauty pageant winner in high school who is so popular and thin. It is about a girl named Lara. Lara was 118 pounds at the time when she had her home coming dance;a month later she has gained 10 pounds.

In the beginning of the book,Lara was this thin popular girl in her high school. She became homecoming queen as well. A month later after home coming,she gained 10 pounds. Every week she start More...

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Jun 13, 2011

Alison rated it:

This book is about how the main character,Lara, transitions from a beauty queen to an overweight person. Personally, i would take this book as a lesson because it teaches me that in life, nothing stays the same forever. It is true that Lara was once a beauty queen but it d0oesnt mean that she will stay like this forever. In life, nothing is impossible. It is alwys possible for something like this to happen to any girls life. After reading this book, it kind of scared me in a way because you neve More...

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Jun 28, 2009

Karla rated it:

Thi sbook was just okay. I was looking for a good message for YA about weight but was disappointed. The main character starts out at 115 or something and gains 100 pounds. Now while that is a drastic weight gain in 1 year, I couldn't get past the fact that this 5'7" character topped out at 218 and yet was described as enduring torturous teasing and stares, couldn't fit into the movie theatre seat and was in essence some huge tub of lard. This is just so unrealistic. I am 5'5" 200 pound More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 13, 2007

Lesley rated it:

I've booktalked it and would put it on booklists dealing with body image. There's a mild sexual scene, but I still booktalked it to 6th graders and didn't get any complaints. It might feel a little dated to Gossip Girl readers, but there's not too many pop culture references.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2011

Melissa rated it:

I liked this book a lot. It was really sad how the main character went from a beauty pageant queen, to an overweight teenage outcast. It wasn't really fair for her because her obesity was caused by a mysterious condition. To me, I could really connect with her when she transferred to a new school, and everyone there made fun of her for the way she looked. Even her family wanted to hide her from the public, and she felt so upset that she kept taking laxatives and suffered every night, with tears More...

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Dec 17, 2011

Bridgid rated it:

This book has such an interesting premise. The perfect girl -- perfect family, perfect life, perfect weight -- starts gaining weight, a lot of weight, for seemingly no reason and suddenly she starts to see the world in an entirely different way.

Cherie Bennett did an amazing job presenting some of the complex emotions people associate with weight, and from a variety of perspectives. I also appreciated that she didn't cloud the story with messages that might come across as contrived. I More...

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Jan 12, 2008

Cecilia rated it:

This was sort of sad, but very realistic. Many girls are like the characters in this book, and I enjoy reading books that have characters that are like people in the real world. So yes, good book.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 21, 2011

kb rated it:

The plot of this novel wasn't utterly original but I guess I have to cut it some slack since it was written in the 90s, when superficiality was just coming into surface. Basically, the story was about this perfect teen beauty queen, Lara, who acquired this weird disease that made her obese, in turn falling off the social ladder. Since I'm always interested in weight issues based stories, that premise kept me going. To be honest, though, it really didn't offer something new or inspiring to me. Go More...

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Nov 29, 2010

Sarah rated it:

It's really four and a half stars, really. This book talks about bullying and fattness, which isn't really that great, but it's no joke. It is now one of my favorite books, because I have a few pounds on me, and, well, with my face, my chubbiness, shortness and a high-pitched voice that no one seems to hear, it HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look, I'm glad that she lost her weight, but I'm glad that she finally knew what it is like More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 20, 2010

Dannielle rated it:

Really didn't like this book that much. It had so many different issues going on, it got annoying. And at times I just felt like the main character needed to get over herself and stop her bitching and make a doctor listen to her. Fine, you're gaining weight and you are doing everything to stop it, but not quite. You're still letting doctors and everyone tell you it's no one's fault other than yours when obviously that isn't true. And maybe it's because I can't stand girls who want to be reed thi More...

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Jan 22, 2009

Lily rated it:

A tale that takes a model for home-coming queen and turns her world upside down as she experiences what it's like to be "The Fat Girl". She can't explain it - she diets, she exercises and nothing works. Will her friends still want to hang out with her now that she's fat? Will her boyfriend still love her? How do her perfect parents feel about this weight gain.

I really enjoyed this book because even though it has some great comedic moments it really focuses in on self-disco More...

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Jun 28, 2010

Laura (Bookish Belle) rated it:

This was one of my favorite novels when I was in high school. Lara was beautiful and the queen of the school and a seemingly perfect family. When she starts to get heavy, she starts to realize that everything she ever thought she knew was a lie or based on her appearance. It was comforting to know that if you have true friends, they won't matter what you do or look like.

The ending was a little bittersweet for me, because Lara's life came together a little too cleanly, but I still enjoy More...

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Aug 12, 2010

Katyh rated it:

What did I learn from this book? That it's really sad to become a fattie if you have an unexplained autoimmune disease that causes you to gain weight no matter what you eat, and you have nothing in common nor nothing to learn from the other fatties, the ones who got that way by eating too much.

This is one of those books where the author clearly was trying to make some big statement through an unreliable narrator, except she wasn't talented enough to pull it off and just ended up send More...

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May 11, 2011

Lady rated it:

The protagonist, Lara Ardeche, is the prototypical popular girl at school - utterly vapid, self-absorbed, and with an ego the size of the Colorado Rockies. To boot, she is a Southern pageant queen. She feels herself to be superior to others, even while preaching - both to herself and to others - that pageant queens should always be soft-spoken, open-minded, and nice, even to their "lessers." We, the readers, are supposed to believe that this idiotic piece of hypocrisy is deeply artisti More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Arelis rated it:

This book is about a girl who lives in a superficial family. She wins pageants and becomes homecoming. Later on though she becomes fat. No matter how much she ate or worked out she gained weight and this disease was called axel-crowne disease. She also faces problems with her family, and starts losing loved ones cus they are mean to her becuase the is fat. This book in uninspiring and not creative at all. I gave it a 2 because it is easy to read and you keep turning the pages to see if she will More...

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Jun 01, 2010

Kristin rated it:

Imagine being a beauty pageant winner, homing queen, and one of my most popular girls in highschool…having it all…then waking up one morning to discover that you lost everything. Lara did have it all, until she gets fat. That is when her world crashes. Diagnosed with a unknown metabolic disorder leaves Lara gaining weight, even when she isn’t eatting. The strict diets and workouts don’t help at all. Soon Lara finds herself as a 200 pound plus teenager…just another fat, unattractive girl in the c More...

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Oct 20, 2011

Molly rated it:

I thought this book was really good. I could not stop reading it! It is about this girl named Lara that is super skinny. She weights 118 pounds. One day she kept on gaining weight. Her mom and dad took her to every doctor but no one knew what was wrong with Lara. The family has also had some drama too, and has to move to Michigan because the father is cheating on the wife. You will have to read the rest of the book to find out what happens next and see if Lara finds a cure. :)

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Apr 14, 2011

Huiyi rated it:

I really liked this book , mainly because I can relate to it. I'm a girl too, so when I read this book, I was more interested in this book, than a guy would be at this. Lara, the protagonist is diagonosed with some weird disease where she gains weight like crazy, and no one knows how to cure it. When things start changing and everything isn't the way it used to be, Lara must think of a way to get her old self back, before her life starts tearing apart.

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Oct 06, 2008

Mary rated it:

This book is truly amazing in the sense of learning the true reality that some teen girls deal with. The many problems that they tend to have come physically and emotionally in this case both were the ones that affected Lara. It was also a time in were she realized how life changing can be when you change your appearance and your friends change and you fear that no one will be by your side. Well molly her best friend always stood by her side but. Lara had a fatal disease and her medication made More...

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Feb 21, 2011

Jessi rated it:

Ugh. This book really just set my teeth on edge. It's one of those books meant for young adolescents that I meant to read when I was one, but never did. I managed to pick it up at the goodwill store this weekend for a quarter and figured I'd give it a shot. What a waste of time.

I'll review it in all it's glory tomorrow on my blog That Damn Spot for my Mucky Monday book review, so be sure to check it out.

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