13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

would be a red velvet dress, the drummer from London After Midnight, Renaissance wear, and Violator. For me: a purple velvet dress, Vince Merino, a vintage suit, and Let Love In, but it changes.

So we decide to do The Fate Papers. The Fate Papers is Mel s name for when you tear off two small bits of paper and write No on one piece and Yes on the other. You shake the two balled up pieces in your hands while you close your eyes and ask the universe your question. You can ask aloud or in your mind. Mel and I both prefer in your mind but sometimes, if it is an urgent matter, like now, we ask aloud. The first paper that drops is the answer. Now we are asking if Mel should call Eric to see if he likes the CD she made him of her favorite Lee Hazlewood songs. The Fate Papers already said No, but we re doing two out of three because that couldn t be right even though The Fate Papers are never wrong. Next, we are going to ask if I should try talking to Vince Merino again after yesterday s fiasco attempt.

The Fate Papers say No to Mel again, then No to me.

The universe is against us, which makes sense. So we get another McFlurry and talk about how fat we are for a while. But it doesn t matter how long we talk about it, or how many times Mel assures me she s a fucking whale beneath her clothes, I know I m fatter. Not by a little either. Mel has an ass, I ll give her that, but that s all I ll give her.

If I win the fat argument then Mel will say, so what I m way prettier than she is but I think face-wise we re about the same. I haven t really grown into my nose yet or discovered the arts of starving myself and tweezing. So I ll be honest with you. In this story, I don t look that good, except for maybe my skin which Mel claims she would kill for. Also my tits. Mel says th

to the canon of American womanhood." Time

"Moving."  The New York Times Book Review

A novel in thirteen vignettes about the experience of being a woman dealing with body image issues or simply put: The experience of being a woman. . . . Even someone who has never struggled with her weight should be able to see her teenage self in Awad s pages. The Rumpus

"With dark humor and heartbreaking honesty, Awad cuts away at diet culture and the pressure on women to make thinness and beauty their priority." San Francisco Chronicle

Awad explores the sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking ways that a person s struggle with body image can seep into every part of her existence. . . . 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is not really about how Lizzie March looks. . . . [it's] about how she sees herself. Wall Street Journal

"Awad portrays Lizzie's humiliations with unflinching honesty and a dose of dark humor." NPR

"It's as if the writer has eavesdropped on your most pathetic, smallest thoughts. . . . Awad's writing is heartbreaking and witty, while her prose is insightful and sharp-elbowed in its caustic edge. . . . [Lizzie is] a vulnerable, funny and fierce narrator." The Salt Lake Tribune

"Awad s satiric edge is on display in her debut novel." Los Angeles Times

"[A] mordant coming-of-age novel." O, The Oprah Magazine

"In this dark, honest debut, Awad sharply observes . . . the struggles of growing up, growing out, and trying to slim down, at any cost." Marie Claire

"The nuance Awad adds to conceptions of weight and body image is applied also to her realizations of female friendships. Lizzie s relationships with other women are at once petty and kind, jealous and admiring." HuffPost

"Blunt and funny, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is a refreshingly honest look at how society views physical appearance, how we internalize those critiques and how that affects the way we navigate the world." Mashable

"Awad s writing is white hot, and deserves to be invoked alongside Gaitskill in its observation and cutting humor, its literary pleasures. It s impossible not to care for Lizzie: not a talking point, but a sweet, calculating, hurt person that is to say, a real woman, who leaves that scarequote-worthy cliché miles behind. . . . Fantastic new genre-bending fiction."  Tin House

"While many women writers are leaning toward a brand of feminism that links all women by making sweeping (and often suffocating) generalizations, Mona Awad insists on difference. . . . Lizzie Smith is not the funny fat girl we ve grown used to in literature and popular culture. She isn t a body empty of nuance, but one loaded instead with fluffy musings about what it means, in fact, to be a fat girl. . . . Awad s tight control of the narrative and the effective work that the 13 chapters accomplish makes it impossible not to understand why Lizzie is doing what she s doing."  Los Angeles Review of Books

Awad is an incredibly skilled writer, with a rare ability to construct tiny moments of both acute empathy and astonishing depth. . . . [and] a profoundly sensitive understanding of the subject matter. . . . It s impossible not to be deeply affected by [her] prose. . . . A real narrative achievement. The Globe and Mail (Canada)

[This] darkly comic book isn t afraid to shock. Minnesota Public Radio, The Best Books of 2016 (so far)


"Empathetic, engaging and bitingly funny. . . . In subject and voice, there are echoes of Margaret Atwood s The Edible Woman and Janice Galloway s The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, but neither has the wit of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl." The Irish Times

"Absorbing . . . Subtle but poignant . . . This sort of intrafeminine aggression will be familiar to most women, whatever side of the body war they ve been on. But it is is a side of experience that hasn t been much explored by literary novelists." The Guardian

"A total must-read . . . Awad s raw and empathetic prose is alternately darkly humorous and painful to read. . . . If you re a woman living in the year 2016, you ve felt some semblance of doubt, pressure or stress about the way you look. As such, you need to read Mona Awad s fantastic new novel." PureWow

Mona Awad writes exactly what you re thinking, and that s one of the many reasons you re going to love her debut. . . . [13 Ways] announces her as a writer with real insight not only to the mind, but also to the heart. Bustle, "17 Of 2016 s Most Anticipated Books"

"Funny and frank." VICE

"As Lizzy examines the body she's never loved, our thin's-in, thigh-gap-crazy world comes into focus." Cosmopolitan

"Throughout these often raw, poignant stories, Awad adeptly skewers the culture of fitness and dieting, a constant battle of self-denial. . . . [An] insightful debut." BookPage

A painfully raw and bitingly funny debut . . . [Lizzie] gets under your skin, and she stays there. Beautifully constructed; a devastating novel but also a deeply empathetic one. Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Assured and terrific. Publishers Weekly

Touching . . . Behind the title of Awad s sharp first book, a unique novel in 13 vignettes, is brazen-voiced Lizzie, who longs for, tests, and prods the deep center of the cultural promise that thinness, no matter how one achieves it, is the prerequisite for happiness. Booklist

This book sparkles with wit and at the same time comes across as so transparent and genuine Awad knows how to talk about the raw struggles of female friendships, sex, contact, humanness, and her voice is a wry celebration of all of this at once. Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
 
Hilarious and cutting . . . Mona Awad has a gift for turning the every day strange and luminous, for finding bright sparks of humor in the deepest dark. She is a strikingly original and strikingly talented new voice. Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me and The Isle of Youth

Luminous . . . full of sharp insight and sly humor . . . It seems that Mona Awad can describe the imperfect nature of any love perfectly: whether it s love between friends, between mother and daughter, husband and wife, woman and food. Katherine Heiny, author of Single, Carefree, Mellow

Remarkable . . . committed to the most honest and painful portrayal and comprehension of what it means to be human, with all its flaws and joys. Brian Evenson, author of Fugue State and Immobility

"I loved this book!" Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans