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Big Fat Manifesto

Susan Vaught (Goodreads Author)

3.47 · Rating details · 1,173 ratings · 206 reviews

Jamie is a senior in high school and, like so many kids in that year, doing too muchâ”including trying to change the worldâ”and fighting for her rights as a very fat girl. And not quietly: she's writing a column every week in the paper with her thoughts and fears and gripes. As her column raises all kinds of questions, so too, must she find her own private way in her

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Hardcover, 308 pages

Published December 26th 2007 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens

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· 1,173 ratings · 206 reviews

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Jan 05, 2012 Megs ♥ rated it really liked it

Jamie is your typical super busy senior in high school, except for the fact that she is morbidly obese. She feels that every fat girl book ends with the fat girl being skinny or well on her way to becoming skinny. Will her story have that ending?

Jamie has a boyfriend, Burke, who is also obese, and he tells her he is going to be getting gastric bypass surgery. Now Jamie has to wonder if she will keep her boyfriend once he gets thin on top of also worrying about studying for finals and how to pay ...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Liz rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this. I was totally psyched to read a book with a smart, non-tragic, and unapologetically fat heroine. But it did that weird annoying thing socially concerned YA books often do where they're like "I'm political, but not TOO crazy! I just write stuff, I don't do any of that extreme activism like going to a rally!". It reminds me of the worst of the feminist blogosphere. Actually, you can definitely trace the influence of the less interesting parts of the online fat I really wanted to like this. I was totally psyched to read a book with a smart, non-tragic, and unapologetically fat heroine. But it did that weird annoying thing socially concerned YA books often do where they're like "I'm political, but not TOO crazy! I just write stuff, I don't do any of that extreme activism like going to a rally!". It reminds me of the worst of the feminist blogosphere. Actually, you can definitely trace the influence of the less interesting parts of the online fat acceptance sphere in Jamie's political rhetoric.

Anyway, when protestors turn up in support of Jamie, she laughs it off, doesn't go talk to them, thinks they're crazy. She also has a neurotic skinny animal liberationist vegan friend who she seems to hate; why are they friends? I don't get it. The way Vegan Friend's neuroses are played for laughs is appallingly cruel; she spends hours trembling and glassy-eyed because she touched a woolen jumper (animal products), and we're supposed to find that funny? maybe in a book where everything is that over the top, but this novel takes a generally realistic tone, and it just comes off as lacking in compassion for someone with a probable mental illness. Plus the "skinny neurotic left-wing chick" thing is part of the same body-shaming culture that oppresses fat people, you know? Disclaimer: I am a neurotic left-wing vegan.

This distaste for radicalism is pretty insulting to the reader; your readers are probably going to be somewhat socially concerned young people, right? They're at least going to be curious about activism. Why ridicule it in an attempt to make yourself seem more moderate, or whatever?

I also really disliked how she has NONE of her own friends. Her two best friends are her boyfriend's friends who she hangs out with. They are pretty flat and tokenistic: the aforementioned vegan and a sassy lesbian whose sexuality never actually gets to impact the plot. Similarly, her boyfriend is black but this doesn't affect the plot or characterisation except that his sisters think he shouldn't be dating a white chick. It's kind of supposed to be a "reverse racism" thing, I think. It's not very cool that that's the only time racial tension is touched on.

Ok, good points! The way Vaught handled gastric band surgery was pretty cool. Jamie is angry at her boyfriend for choosing the dangerous procedure, he's a shithead to her, but there are no pat answers. I also liked that Jamie has an experience with being misquoted by a reporter; that whole plot point was pretty realistic and a warning to us all. At first Jamie came off as unrealistically self-confident, but in fact she was shown to struggle sometimes with living as a fat girl in an anti-fat world. I loved the detail that she never ate at school because she was embarassed to eat in front of other people; it was one of the few moments in the book that I found truly affecting, heartbreaking even.

mostly, though, this book just made me want to read "no fat chicks" by margaret clark instead. check it out.

...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Kelly rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, ya-fiction, read-in-2012

4.5.

Jamie is a fat girl -- a very fat girl -- who writes about being a fat girl for her school's newspaper. She sees it as a way to prove people like her are normal and have the same feelings and experiences anyone else does. It's also, she hopes, a ticket to college since her family can't afford it otherwise.

This is my second Vaught book and I am sold her on as an author. Her characters have real voice and real heart, despite being flawed. Jamie isn't as confident as she makes herself sound in ...more

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May 09, 2015 TJL rated it did not like it

Shelves: i-am-actually-seething-with-rage, i-knew-it-would-piss-me-off, reviewed, this-book-made-me-angry, dnf, preachy-af, i-wanted-to-slap-the-main-character, pander-a-little-harder, main-character-is-a-jerkass

Where do I even start.

I rarely fail to finish books. When I do, it's usually because they are so mind-bogglingly boring that I can't finish.

And sometimes it's because they are so unbelievably infuriating that I actually get a headache and can't continue.

This book falls under category two.

I made it to about chapter three/four before finally forcing myself to put the book away before I could throw it out a window (if it were my own copy, I probably would have done just that, but it's a library ...more

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Mar 05, 2009 Brandi Rae Fong rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult-fiction, realistic-fiction, tough-issues

Being fat isn’t easy. Clothes don’t fit you. People stare at you or pretend that you are not there; they feel uncomfortable around you. They whisper, wondering if you know how big you are and, if so, why don’t you just do something about it?

Jamie Carcaterra knows how it feels first hand how it feels to be fat, and frankly she is sick of how people act around her. She knows she is overweight. She is fat. In fact, she is Fat Girl, author of the Fat Girl features in her school newspaper, The Wire. ...more

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Dec 28, 2014 Sara rated it it was ok

Eh. Narrator is tired of everything, all the time, being about how fat she is ... so she starts writing a column for her school newspaper about being fat. She hopes the column will be enough to get her a scholarship for college, because there's no other way she'll get to go, and I'm like, there are these things called student loans that are not hard to get, and yeah, you don't want to go into crazy debt, but don't act like this one particular scholarship is the only possible way you can pay for ...more

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Sep 16, 2015 hannah⚢ rated it did not like it

Shelves: lgbt-general, teenage-me-reads

1.5 stars

I had high expectations for this book, and was sorely disappointed.

The author was whiny, and I swear to god, every time she talked I wanted to violently hit my head against the wall

A better, more thorough review later

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Dec 21, 2008 Arminzerella rated it liked it

Shelves: realistic, young-adult-fiction, borrowed-from-the-library, chick-lit, weight-issues, body-image, fat-girl-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Jamie Carcaterra is fat – not just overweight, but obese. And she’s sick of people thinking that it’s ok to cut her (and other fat people) down for it. While she’s mostly well-adjusted and self-confident, Jamie feels that other people should know what it’s like to be the fat girl, so she starts writing a column for her school newspaper as a means to air her feelings on the subject and educate others (it also wouldn’t hurt if she can use her column to win some scholarship money either). Jamie’s Jamie Carcaterra is fat – not just overweight, but obese. And she’s sick of people thinking that it’s ok to cut her (and other fat people) down for it. While she’s mostly well-adjusted and self-confident, Jamie feels that other people should know what it’s like to be the fat girl, so she starts writing a column for her school newspaper as a means to air her feelings on the subject and educate others (it also wouldn’t hurt if she can use her column to win some scholarship money either). Jamie’s column becomes surprisingly popular and starts to attract a lot of attention – even outside of school. After the local news station learns about Jamie’s column on Hot Chix (a popular clothing store for thin teenage girls), they interview her and then edit the footage to make her look as bad as possible. Jamie’s incensed. It doesn’t stop there, however. In the midst of all of this, Jamie’s boyfriend Burke (also fat), gets bariatric surgery to lose weight. Jamie is scared that the surgery will kill him, and if it doesn’t, she worries that once he’s thin, he won’t want her anymore.

Jamie’s fears aren’t unwarranted. The surgery totally changes Burke (at least for the time being) and all he can think about is how much weight he’s losing and how others perceive the new him. And this translates into pep talks for Jamie – you know, you could lose weight, too. And that really hurts her. She worries about his health, too – there can be lots of complications from the surgery and long term effects aren’t known – but it’s too much to think about all the time. Surprisingly (and refreshingly) it’s Jamie who finds someone else first. Her co-editor, Heath, finds her attractive and doesn’t think she needs fixing. Burke goes ballistic when Jamie tells him, but it feels like it’s for the best.

This was a really good (and somewhat different) look at the politics of fat. Jamie’s columns do more than educate her schoolmates – they educate her readers, too, and humanize the fat condition. Jamie is still working through a lot of these issues, too, so her turmoil should bring up a lot of discussion. It’s easy to miss or dismiss these issues if you’re not fat, and Jamie (and Susan Vaught) does a great job showing how the skinny mentality affects everyone – and not just fat people. For once, I was relieved to find that “fat” wasn’t a size 12, and that the fat girl didn’t suddenly lose lots of weight and become skinny and then find that her life was so much better. She stays fat, and acknowledges that she wishes she weren’t, but that changing her body isn’t something she can do (right now, or maybe ever), so she’s trying to stay positive. It’s really hard to do that when everyone seems to be against you.

I’m not sure how many teenage girls will pick this one up. It’s really good, but the stigma of being fat is really bad. And how many kids are going to care about Jamie’s problems? How many will be sympathetic to her cause? It almost seems like this would appeal more to college-aged women – or at least girls who are more open to body image issues, feminism, etc. It’s not easy to be different or be an activist in high school. At least, not about fat. ...more

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Jan 15, 2014 Hannah rated it it was ok

Shelves: for-classes

I'm reading 5-6 YA books about body image and eating disorders for an honors course. I was probably most excited about this one, and I took two pages of notes as I read it. I'll try to compress them here.

Pros:
- Jamie is a confident fat girl whose confidence doesn't magically free her from cultural fatphobia, so sometimes she still struggles (e.g., fitting room cries)
- Introduces readers to the idea that most of the "misery" that comes with being fat is society's fault, not the fat person's
- I'm reading 5-6 YA books about body image and eating disorders for an honors course. I was probably most excited about this one, and I took two pages of notes as I read it. I'll try to compress them here.

Pros:
- Jamie is a confident fat girl whose confidence doesn't magically free her from cultural fatphobia, so sometimes she still struggles (e.g., fitting room cries)
- Introduces readers to the idea that most of the "misery" that comes with being fat is society's fault, not the fat person's
- Vaught addresses some really important examples of this in Jamie's life, such as receiving inadequate medical attention because it is assumed that all of a fat person's problems can be solved by losing weight
- One of Jamie's friends is gay (or bi) and it is presented very casually so yay for representation

Cons:
- I know I kind of listed this as a pro, but I got frustrated with Jamie so much because she was actually rather insecure. I think I came into this book expecting Fat Girl (the "character" who writes her column), who doesn't always match Jamie. Jamie still compares herself to her friends, still wants to lose weight, hasn't eaten in front of people since 5th grade, isn't actually totally opposed to surgery for herself, equates being fat with having cancer, does the whole "denying that someone could be attracted to me" thing, etc. I understand the point of this and that it is important character complexity, but it's mostly why I didn't enjoy reading this.
- So even though the very first column she writes addresses the myth that all fat people are miserable and hate themselves and want your advice about losing weight, Jamie herself sometimes fulfills that stereotype. It's okay to be stereotypical, but I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that some people will read this and view it as evidence that the stereotype secretly does apply to everyone, and that confident fat people are just lying to themselves.
- Another stereotype that this book doesn't handle well: all fat people have wildly different eating habits than "normal people," such as 4 chocolate bars as a regular snack, and it's totally everyone's business. I have a feeling that the other books with fat protoganists on my list will make a much larger spectacle of the character's diet than this one, though. Tired of this trope.
- The few moments where her boyfriend's race is addressed... His sisters essentially only dislike Jamie because she's white? Is this supposed to be scary "reverse racism"? Also, Jamie addresses the issue that black people are three times more likely to die from bariatric surgery but "doctors don't know why." Well, sociologists do.

Anyway, "it was okay" sums my feelings up pretty well, so 2 stars.
...more

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Aug 31, 2010 Taylor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I read this book for my Pre-AP English class. It was actually pretty good, I enjoyed it. Though it did get boring sometimes, so that's why I gave it four stars instead of five.

The conflict of this book, involving the main character Jamie Carcaterra, dealt with her trying to finish up senior year and getting into a good college. In which she would need and wanted to win the NFA (National Feature Award) for "outstanding journalism promoting the public well-being," a scholarship to the journalism ...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Christine rated it really liked it

This book was fabulous. It completely captured the truth of most teens, who pretend to be fine with who they are, even defensive of it, but deep down hate everything about it and want nothing more than change.
Jamie sets out to break myths about fat girls, and denounces several myths through out the book in her Fat Girl's Manifesto articles, but also reveals several of her insecurities about whether or not 'normal' people really want the fat girl to be their friend or girlfriend.
The only reason ...more

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May 07, 2013 Aiyana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: disability, middle-school-to-ya, feminist

Unabashedly brilliant. I love the complexity, strength, and voice of the main character. Jamie is snarky and sassy, a teen activist for fat rights and fat acceptance... but no matter how strong a person's convictions, life always has a way of making her question the things she is most sure of. What I love about this book is how it acknowledged Jamie's struggles with her identity as a Proud Fat Girl without in any way taking away from that identity and her main message. You get to know the real ...more

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Jul 23, 2008 Denise Vega rated it it was amazing

A big departure from TRIGGER, BIG FAT MANIFESTO tells the story of Jamie, who writes a "fat manifesto" for the school newspaper, detailing the prejudice against fat people and her own experiences. When her "large" boyfriend decides to get surgery to shrink his stomach, Jamie goes through a lot of soul-searching to figure out who she really is and how she feels about herself. Jamie is a funny, strong, fabulous character and the book is a wonderful read.

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Jul 17, 2013 Helen rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this book. I was drawn in by the main character, who starts out with an "I'm fat and I don't care who knows it" attitude, but during the course of the novel, reveals progressively more of her true feelings and vulnerability. A great lesson in how to effectively use a first-person narrator.

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Jan 17, 2014 ~*kath*~ rated it liked it

Not bad. I enjoyed the story, but was irritated by a lot of fence sitting over fat politics. Particularly annoyed by the suggestion that fat activists are somehow aggressive or extreme.

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Dec 13, 2013 Caitlin Marie rated it it was amazing

Best YA book I've read in a very long time, wonderful characters and great plot.

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Aug 24, 2018 Dominique rated it liked it · review of another edition

Part of me really liked this book, but the part that made me give it less a star was the romance -- or should I say, cheating?

I was already intrigued by Jamie, our main character, upon the first few pages. I loved her attitude and confidence, and her two best friends, Freddie and NoNo. I appreciate this story for showing how obese people are discriminated, looked down upon, humiliated and so forth, including during a visit to the doctor's. As with Jamie's boyfriend, Burke, it was gripping, if ...more

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May 02, 2018 Kristi Hackney rated it really liked it

Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught is a great read. The main character Jaime is really easy to relate to and put yourself in her shoes. The book is in first person from Jaime’s point of view, the way she explains things gives the reader the opportunity to put their self in her shoes. She explains what it is like to be a fat girl in modern society and what effects it has on her day to day life. Jaime is a senior in highschool trying to go to college and get scholarships. The main scholarship she ...more

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Dec 19, 2017 Lani Siale rated it it was amazing

This was an AMAZING book!

Susan Vaught is an amazing author! Her words are so strong and heart felt. I used to hate reading but when I read the first page of this book it opened my eyes to the new world of books. I'd like to say that I discovered my genre thanks to this great book. I found it relate-able in so many ways even though I don't consider myself as fat.

If you have no idea what its like to be a fat girl or want to know what they think about themselves then I strongly suggest you read ...more

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Mar 17, 2018 Casey Jo rated it really liked it

I really liked how Vaught incorporated fat positivity into YA, and the use of the column as a place to get in those needed rants without feeling quite so didactic. WLS is so rarely discussed and critiqued, so that was lovely to see.

(view spoiler)

That said, as other reviews have noted, the boyfriend is Black, but ...more

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Apr 26, 2018 Caitlin rated it really liked it

Wow, what a book!!! By the second page, I was hooked. This was written in 2008 but it sounded like a book that could’ve been released today, because of the body positive language and beliefs. Really great story and protagonist! The only thing that bummed me out a bit was that towards the end, there was quite a bit of the belief of: I’m fat and I will stand up for my dignity but yes of course I’d rather be skinny.
Which to me is not really part of BoPo. Wanting to be skinny still instills feelings ...more

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May 04, 2017 Chelsea rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult

I had a hard time deciding how to rate this book. Maybe 3.5?

While reading I felt a push to keep reading! I wanted to find out what was going to happen, but by the end I'm not sure I felt satisfied. They was also A LOT of PG 13 language that wasn't making me love it. But I felt I learned a lot about the life of obese people and what they have to deal with. I go away a better person with that knowledge so that I can have more compassion.

The love triangle was entertaining.

So would I recommend ...more

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Oct 17, 2019 Eva rated it liked it

I don't know what I think about this book. On the one hand, it's an important thing to have books like this and I recognise that and appreciate the author writing it. On the other hand, there's (view spoiler) and the main character being horrible to her friends. (She does recognise and apologise for this. Eventually.) I don't know! Another part of me feels like I don't have the right to say anything about this book because I'm coming from a place of skinny privilege. But ...more

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Nov 07, 2018 Angelique rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: things-read-in-2018, an-actual-book-2018

LOVED IT - where the hell was this book when I was in high school? A fat character who both embraces her fatness but deals with shame that ultimately everyone deals with. And she has boyfriends and is the lead in musicals and can write and made me think about body positivity, although it’s very ya- not much drama, but so much there about fatness and health.

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Apr 11, 2019 Hannah Barnes rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, young-adult, fantasy, realistic-fiction

I found this very typical of a YA novel. Some of the points were predictable, but it did have a fresh spin with the main character being a fat girl. The humor and Jamie's column are two of the things that really make this novel shine. I also love how real statistics and facts are woven into the story.

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Dec 31, 2017 Kira Brighton rated it really liked it

I learned a lot reading this book.

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Jun 06, 2017 Ash rated it really liked it

I definitely think that this is a great book for teens. It has a positive message and also shows the growth a young woman goes through while figuring out who she is.

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Sep 26, 2019 The Carrion Librarian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya-fiction, slice-of-life

This one is a hard read and triggering in places. I do wish more thin people would read this though, especially Jamie's column.

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Jan 30, 2019 Angie Fehl rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I was rooting for this one in the beginning but Jamie's whole attitude / voice of trying too hard to be unaffected & edgy was just too damn obnoxious for me to get very far with her story.

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Dec 10, 2017 Laura Rasmussen rated it liked it

A coming of age novel about an obese teenager. Lots of fat issues are brought up - fat acceptance, self esteem, fat discrimination, bariatric surgery (and it's risk), and more.

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About Susan Vaught

Susan Vaught

190 followers

Website: http://susanvaught.com

astrology sign: Libra

favorite book: Harry Potter (all of them) and His Dark Materials
(all of those, too)

favorite song:I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab for Cutie

current pet total:12 if you don't count the chickens, peafowl,
turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, or guineas.

names of my schools:
Vanderbilt University (MS, Ph.D.)
University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) ...more