Entertaining the Alien

49. Thinner Than Thou, Kit Reed

You know, when I saw this book I was really intrigued by the premise. Science fiction where the premise is a dystopian future that values body image above--almost to the exclusion of--everything else. Too fat or too thin, and you get locked up until the "problem" gets resolved.

I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately, by page ten, I was rolling my eyes.

Friends, this is a Bad Book. And it's bad on multiple levels. First of all, it's preachy as hell. And I say that as someone who, initially, agreed with Reed's premise (i.e., our nation's focus on body image is destructive). When you're preaching to the choir, and the choir is yawning and rolling their eyes? You're too preachy.

Second, Reed has a love affair with exclamation points and present tense in this book. Neither is a healthy relationship. The dialogue... well... I can tell that she's trying to go for ultra realistic dialogue, but here's the thing. Ultra realistic dialogue makes for horrible prose. Rendering every vocal pause, every 'um', every 'like', does not make your writing interesting. It makes Baby Jesus cry. Want proof?

"...We pay through the nose to look better and none of it really works... And every lousy bit of originated here. It's also. Agh. Ah." The woman is grieving. She can hardly get out the words. When she does they come up like a little fusillade of hair balls. "Ack. The endgame phase of Solutions is here."

This is a major dramatic moment in the book, and I spent it trying to figure out if the 'agh' was supposed to be back in the throat or farther forward. And also? 'Ack' will kill any dramatic tension around it.

Also, for a book that purports to be so body image positive, her portrayals of fat characters are absolutely appalling. Enraging, even. The character for whom we're supposed to have the most sympathy is an anorexic teenager. We're supposed to resent the people who are force-feeding her, resent anyone trying to 'cure' her. The fat characters, without a single exception, are presented as every negative stereotype you can think of--the literary equivalent of those horrible stock neck-down shots that accompany every news story about obesity. The fat characters are all utterly incapable of turning down food, they are helpless before it. When Annie (the anorexic--get it? get it? Annie the Anorexic?) is trying to flee the evil people who are making her eat, a fat girl named Kelly accompanies her (although, of course, she can barely walk and slows our heroine down). Kelly, although her life is in danger, absolutely has to stop and take the doughnuts from the sleeping guard. Because she can't resist. Because she's fat. Another fat character winds up in the custody of the evil fitness guru because his mother (whom he lives with, despite being an overwhelmingly successful executive) pushes him into a Barcalounger and flips up the footrest. And of course, he is too fat to get up by himself. I am not denying that people have been immobilized by their size, but you can't tell me that someone who clearly has no other issues as far as mobility is concerned could be turned turtle just by a recliner. This character replaces sex with food, and has some serious mommy issues. Aside from the characterizations, the language Reed uses to describe her fat characters is anything but accepting, and hints at a strong sense of disgust on her part. They don't walk. They waddle. They shuffle. The bigger they are, the less human Reed makes them, and in so doing, undermines her own message.

Finally, her worldbuilding makes absolutely no logical sense. In her world, religion has been literally driven underground by the all-powerful Reverend Earl, fitness guru. The United States government has apparently vanished from the face of the earth, and forget civil rights. All of this in a future so close to our own that people still drive cars and watch DVDs. How could anybody take a look at the world we live in and think for a minute that religion would be banished by fitness in the space of ten to fifteen years? Especially when there are increasing signs of religion combining with fitness? Who needs Reverend Earl and his theories of the "Afterfat" when we have televangelists preaching health and wealth doctrines, when you have diet books coming out that are essentially WWJE (what would Jesus eat)?

This book is so bad and infuriating, I've only just scratched the surface. It's poorly written and was, for me at least, offensive. I think I finished it only out of sheer stubbornness. And because every time I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, it did. I read books like these so y'all don't have to. Honestly.

Posted by Lisa at December 21, 2004 10:59 PM | 2004