Life In the Fat Lane By: Cherie Bennett

Title: Life in the Fat Lane
Author: Cherie Bennett
HARDBACK
Amount of Pages: 260
Year Published: 1998
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Geared Towards: Teens
From: Library

“’You don’t have any idea what I’m like. I’m only beginning to figure it out myself.’”

Summary (From Front Flap): There’s a perfect girl in every school, yours included. You know her. Beautiful. Talented. Smart. Great parents. Cool boyfriend. You can’t hate her, because, of course, she’s so nice.

At Forest Hills High, Lara Ardeche is that girl.

But things can change.

When her mom notices that Lara has gained a few more pounds, Lara chalks it up to her allergy medication. But going off the medicine doesn’t make any difference. Despite a strict diet and workout schedule, Lara not only gains more weight-she starts to get fat.

Really fat. Lara swears she isn’t overeating. But she keeps gaining weight anyway. And gaining. And gaining…

Soon thin, pretty, perfect Lara is pushing 200 pounds.

Desperate to get her to-die-for body back, Lara tries everything. Diets. Pills. Starvation. Nothing works. And slowly, the world as she knows it begins to crumble.

Who will stay by her side? Her image-concious family? Her shallow friends? Her handsome boyfriend? Or will she be left alone in the land of the fat girls?

Wdebo’s Review: Life in the Fat Lane seemed like a book with so much potential.

The topic about wanting to become skinny has created such well written books such as Wintergirls [Click HERE for review]. Even though I haven't read a lot of books about a sudden explosion of weight, but there is just something about the topic just makes it seem like it should easily create heartwrenchingly well written stories. Life in the Fat Lane, however, was a disappointment to me.

I found the character of Lara to be really shallow and annoying, which was a big reason why I did not enjoy the book. Though the writing was pretty good, Lara’s annoying little “beauty-pagent” voice just seemed to ruin it. I absolutely hate people like her. She just seemed like one of those people you see in movies, the really ditzy-dumb-“nice” followers of that one “it” girl. Also, she used the word “popular” WAY too much, the whole time she was like “blah blah blah this person is thin or fat and blah blah blah she/he is popular or not popular.”

There was also the character of Jett, Lara’s boyfriend that annoyed me. He just seemed too cliché. Especially with the ponytail, not all artsy guys have ponytails…I just think guys with ponytails are kind of scary. But there are a few likeable characters such as Molly, Lara’s best friend, who is loud, big, and speaks her mind, unlike a lot of the characters in the book.

Cafe Cover Chat: Not the biggest fan of the cover…it’s just the style of the 90’s but I still don’t like it that much…and that girl doesn’t really remind me of Lara. (C+)

All in all, not really the type of book I would recommend to my friends. But there have been some good things about this book, so if you REALLY want to read this book, I would say “go ahead,” but if you’re just curious, I would say “skip it.”

Grade: C+

Wdebo :)