Fat Girl: A True Story

I wasn’t interested in this book like I thought I would be.

This book is compelling and an amazing journey through a horrible childhood. Warning: it is not darkly funny - it is just dark - but at the same time an excellent read.

Judith Moore never tells us exactly how much she weighs. She doesn't need to. Throughout her sobering, scathing and terrifying memoir, we know. She is fat. "Fat Girl" ought be read by every American teen-ager; its unusual conversational voice, absolute candor and terrifying storytelling give the memoir a transcendent authenticity. Moore's courage is astounding; her willingness to divulge the most intimate aspects of her hellish life makes the memoir almost too-painful to read. Self-loathing permeates Moore's description of herself. Her arms "are as big as those maroon-skinned bolognas that hang from butchers' ceilings." The skin on her thighs is "pocked, not unlike worn foam rubber." Her repugnant odors humiliate her. She doesn't perspire; she cascades sweat. Judith Moore is a "short, squat toad of a woman." It is no surprise to hear her confide: "I hate myself. I have almost always hated myself...because I am fat." Moore unflinchingly instructs us that food provides comfort; it becomes "the mother, the father, the warm-hearted lover." But it is also the curse. As a "fatso," More knows that she elicits disgust, pity, disapproval, condescension and embarrassment. As one drunken date confesses, she's "too fat to [fornicate]." The author is unrelenting in her staggering self-description and equally uncompromising when she details her horrifying childhood. Abandoned by her father and brutalized by both her mother and maternal grandmother, Moore spiritually "had been starved." She never experienced love. In an exquisite metaphor, she likens herself to the three little pigs; she was the one "who built a house of fat to keep from the door the ravening wolf from whose long teeth dark blood dribbled." After the dissolution of her parents' marriage, Moore's mother left Judith to suffer her maternal grandmother's emotional assaults. Ironically, this "Nazi of the barnyard" could cook, and the author "got her elbows up on the kitchen table...and fed her face." Yet no amount of food could assuage the gnawing fear of a young girl growing up without a father. "I do not think I so much missed the man who was my father as I wanted a father." Sporadic visits by her mother only exacerbate Moore's isolation and dwindling sense of self-worth. Eventual relocation to New York with her mother brings new terror into the author's life. Not content with unleashing a daily barrage of verbal abuse, Judith's mother savagely beats her with a belt. Schooldays carry their own unique torture. Moore cannot raise her hand to answer a question for fear of her sweat-stained underarms. She's too fat to do a somersault. Regular visits to the school nurse for weigh-ins reinforce her sense of grotesqueness. Inexorably, Moor's odyssey through her childhood leads her from shyness to silliness to self-abnegation. Every day, she hears reminders from her mother that she is worthless, ugly, vile. Shame becomes her constant companion. Regular beatings, de

This book had me hooked from the first sentence. Judith Moore makes no apologies for her blunt and honest prose, and she even prepares you for it. She makes no attempts to "sugarcoat" anything about her life, and I admired her bravery in doing so. What I did not admire were the instances where complete strangers ridiculed her or treated her with disdain, and she rehashes many of these scenes for the reader. Especially disgusting was the time a blonde woman, walking down the street carrying a bag of Kentucky Fried Chicken, had her bag of dinner attacked by Moore's little dog, who smelled the food and grabbed the bag with her teeth. The blonde's dinner went all over the sidewalk, and she reprimanded Moore for not keeping better hold of her dog. Moore sincerely apologized and handed the woman a $20. Was she grateful? Of course not. She gave Moore a dirty look and hurried away. Keep in mind that the chicken dinner probably cost six bucks at the most. I am very sad for the author and immensely angry at a society that treats overweight people this way. I honestly had no idea that total strangers vocalized their disgust so readily, without thought to anyone's feelings. It really opened my eyes to the prejudices that obese people face. What Judith Moore has done is something almost every woman has done at some point in her life--belittle herself. Most women do not publish their self-loathing, however, and that is what makes this book so astonishing. Fat or thin, male or female, this book has something that everyone can understand. Heartwrenching and true, you'll end up wishing it was just really really good fiction.

This riveting account of growing up in an abusive home is tough to read. Judith Moore's mother was the chronically-dissatisfied product of a broken home. Her father was obese from childhood, and felt inferior because of it. It is likely that this man's own insecurity prevented him from taking steps to protect Judith when he and her mother divorced. Thus, at about 4 years old, Judith was plunged into the misery of living with "Grammy" on an Arkansas farm, followed by a life with a vindictive, physically abusive mother. The only respite from this hell was the time Judith spent with her kindly gay uncle Carl. Throughout, the now-obese Judith was tormented by children her own age and came to loathe herself. This book raises the old "chicken and egg question": Did Judith Moore become fat because she filled the hole inside her with food, instead of love? Or was she genetically predestined to become fat, and was mistreated as a result of it? After reading this book, I am inclined to believe that it is not an "either-or" proposition. Judith Moore almost certainly has "fat genes," from both her father and from Grammy; she exacerbated the problem by bingeing where and when she could find food (although this was likely in reaction to the strenuous diets her mother forced her to follow); and, most important, if Judith had not been fat, her mother would have abused her for reasons of her own. There is almost no levity in this book. Aside from Uncle Carl's "chartreuse party," where green food is served to celebrate redecorating a green room, it is one harrowing situation after another. Yet, this downbeat memoir raises a lot of important questions: Are fat people forced to work harder to obtain the same love granted those of normal weight? How does growing up fat (as did Judith and her father) affect one's body image as an adult? Does it lead to a permanent "inferiority complex"? This searingly honest story is worth your time and attention.

Rarely have I read such a detailed and honest portrayal of one person's struggle with obesity. Pulling no punches, Moore lets it all hang out...her abusive parents, her pain and despair and sense of hopelessness and her obsession with food. At the heart of the book is her loathing of her body, the container she would NOT have chosen to house her spirit.

This is one of the most intense books that I have read in the past few years. Having been slim and heavy during by life, I have experienced the perks and attention given to attractive people, and the invisibility given to someone when they are fat. I could feel her pain and longing, that I too felt as a child. A void that could never be filled. Her honesty is amazing and courageous, and on top of that the book is just beautifully written. Amazing.