Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love and Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin....Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons aka Brittany Herself

Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love and Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin...Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons aka Brittany Herself has an impossibly long title for what the book is, but it grabbed my attention nonetheless, so I guess it works. 

I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book. I was at Barnes and Noble one morning looking for Radical Self Love by Gala Darling. Because my local B&N has the weirdest way of shelving books (and RSL wasn't even where it was supposed to be anyway), I found Fat Girl Walking first. I remember seeing it on a few must read lists in magazines, but a lot of those lists are just new releases and hold no literary value- so I usually just take them as paid advertising from publishing houses and not much else. Anyway, I started flipping through the book and I was drawn in immediately. It was expensive though, so I put it down, bought Radical Self Love (which I still haven't finished, by the way) and obsessed about the book I left behind.

I ordered it on Amazon the next day because after reading her blog (brittanyherself.com, which she doesn't really update anymore), I knew I really had to get the book (and Amazon was more within my budget). It was every bit as funny as I remembered it being (well, the parts I'd read in Barnes and Noble anyway), and I felt that she wasn't putting on a show for anyone like some bloggers do- what you see is what you get with Brittany.

Reviews from sites like Goodreads and Amazon were harsh for the book, and I thought about them while reading it. A lot of people said that the book was a let down because they said the title talks about being confident in a plus size body, but most of her stories were about her struggle to get there. Do you go to a movie expecting the pivotal plot point to be revealed right at the beginning? I don't. That would be such a let down. Also, this isn't a self help book per se, it is a memoir. There are no mantras or affirmations to repeat, no guide to flattering Instagram angles and filters- this is Brittany's life. If you can help yourself after hearing her story- then that's an awesome bonus.

The other biggest complaint that I saw was about all the sex talk. Well, sex is in the title of the book, so I'm not sure why people were so surprised. Its like if you bought a book titled Ten Hail Marys: Stories from the Other Side of the Confessional  written by Some Priest and got surprised that there were stories of sins that people had confessed to him in it. The sex talk is part of her narrative and it fits- so big deal. My own personal ehs about the book are the emails included towards the end. They just seemed like filler and served no real purpose, but she does have a bunch of them on her blog, so maybe she just included them because her readers expected it? Also, I would never speak about my dad the way she talks about her parents. It wasn't necessarily horrible, its just not any way I would talk about my dad (I'm totally a Daddy's girl though, so that could be why).

Overall, I recommend this book a lot. Its a quick read, funny, and at the end of it you feel like you've gained a new friend. Also, shes writing a new book that's due out at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. Its a fashion memoir and I'm hoping it'll be as good as (or maybe better than) Fat Girl Walking. I have such a difficult time dressing myself, I would love to hear other people's traumas :)

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