January is my least favorite month.
Every January, the steady stream of people hating their bodies intensifies into a deluge. Nonstop weight loss ads fill my tv screen and social media feed, promising dramatic, if unlikely, results. At gatherings, the delicious holiday cookies from December have been replaced with tasteless grain-free hockey pucks. Inevitably at least one family member will talk incessantly about their diet, while looking askance at my body. And I’m grumpy because my usual exercise spots are suddenly packed with new people loudly complaining about their “bad” and “ugly” bodies. By St. Patrick’s Day, I know diet culture will have melted down to its usual toxic hum, and I can drink my Guinness in relative peace.
In times of trouble, I turn to books. Instead of silently stewing all January, this year I decided to focus on books with positive representations of fat bodies, and most importantly, zero dieting.
This is surprisingly difficult. Diet culture is ever present in romance and characters reflexively police their eating. I read a lesbian romance recently where the heroine ordered a piece of lamb pie, and then spent two paragraphs explaining why she was allowed to eat pie. You see, she hadn’t eaten all day. She usually wouldn’t order anything this heavy. She was required to sample the pub menu as part of her job. The pie wasn’t that tasty anyway. And she immediately thought afterwards that it wasn’t the sort of thing she’d ever want to eat outside of winter, that magical season when one is allowed to eat pie.
This is what happens when we assign moral value to a basic human function, eating. Just eat your damn pie.
Many romance novels with fat main characters have plus-sized heroines who are deeply uncomfortable with their bodies, and feel unworthy of love. In these stories, the heroine’s self-acceptance relies on her thin lover to convince her that she’s beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with these books, and I have often enjoyed them. But I’m tired of only reading stories where a character’s fatness is central to the plot, as though it’s a character flaw they have to overcome. Just like I celebrated when queer romances moved beyond only coming out stories, I’m so glad we have plenty of romance novels with resilient fat characters, and narrative conflicts unrelated to their size.
My fat-positive books party has been the perfect antidote to my January blues. I’ve been tweeting about it all month, and wanted to share a few of my favorite contemporary romances with the Bitchery. In the future, I’ll be sharing fat-positive books in other sub-genres, so let me know if there’s something you’re looking for!
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If the Boot Fits by Rebekah Weatherspoon
I have yet to read a Weatherspoon novel that isn’t diet-free. She’s a national treasure, and this contemporary Cinderella retelling is one of my favorites.
A mistreated celebrity assistant scores a ticket to a swanky Hollywood party, and ends up falling for a famous actor who has no idea who she is. If you are looking for a fat heroine who loves her body, and has zero baggage about her size, this is your book. The heroine is confident about her appeal, even as she’s embarrassed by her job.
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Olivia Dade excels at writing fat characters, and Teach Me has one of my favorite heroines, a guarded middle-aged teacher who fiercely advocates for her students. Rose has plenty of obstacles to trusting Martin, the new teacher in school who keeps accidentally making her life more difficult. But none of them are about her hating her body. Rose knows her worth and I loved that she initially pursues Martin.
I also adored the way Teach Me gently showed Rose conquering fatphobic microaggressions at work. And Rose and Martin’s emotional intelligence is off the charts! There is much magical adult communication. I’m hopelessly inept at office politics, so I loved seeing these two navigate a bullying situation with ease.
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This low-conflict novella is set in a super-queer karaoke club, where a chubby non-binary professor falls for a fat vet admin assistant who can belt out tunes. I read it TWICE, that’s how cute these two are. I wouldn’t change a single word.
There’s mutual crush that sparks over tipsy late night flirting. And many karaoke love songs. Sam, the professor, is shy and extremely kissable, and I loved watching Lily bring them out of their shell. Lily is an aspiring fashion designer, and my favorite part of the story was how she helps Sam find clothing that fits their gender dreams.
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I cannot emphasize how hard it is to find m/m romances with fat characters who aren’t self loathing. So I’m very grateful for this grumpy/sunshine story about a chubby former apple farmer and a hockey star in need of redemption.
The Game Changers series has been one of my faves since I devoured Heated Rivalry, but there’s been very little size diversity until this installment. Role Model has plenty of angst and an epic coming out scene that made me cry like a baby! Yes, I know I said I’m over coming out stories, but I’m nothing if not inconsistent.
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Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
It’s hard to decide which Hibbert book is the most fat positive. But I’ve loved Get A Life, Chloe Brown since I saw Chloe’s cankles on the cover, and the Brown Sisters trilogy is one of my most frequent rereads.
This is the book equivalent of receiving an orgasmic foot rub while wearing a Snuggie and drinking hot cocoa with extra marshmallows. It’s a witty rom-com with a prickly heroine who is worried about her chronic illness, not her size, being pursued by Red, a mushball hero prone to rescuing little old ladies. There’s lots of extremely sexy caretaking: He cooks, he cleans, he pleasures! However, there were a couple of points where Red picks Chloe up and carries her, which is something I tend to side-eye with fat characters.
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Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory
This and While We Were Dating are my favorite Guillory books. This celebrity romance has a lawyer who’s new to town, being pursued by California’s heartthrob Senator.
The heroine is closer to curvy than fat, but I struggle to think of a more anti-dieting book. The couple eat their way across Los Angeles, and much of their courtship happens over food. There’s not one, but two, grand gestures involving pastry. However, I feel honor bound to warn you that the sex scenes are lackluster.
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Their Troublesome Crush by Xan West (Z”l)
There’s no sex in this book, but there’s plenty of swoony romance and mutual pining.
In this queer polyamorous novella, an autistic trans man and a disabled cisgender woman are in a dominant/submissive relationship with the same person, when they realize they’re also attracted to one another. Both main characters are fat, and the descriptions of their bodies are vivid and appreciative. The tone of this low-conflict story is earnest and sweet, with plenty of careful communication about kink.
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As I’ve been reading this month, I’ve noticed that by consistently pairing fat heroines with thin partners, many m/f romances are unwilling to diverge from the expectation that heroes must be thin, muscular and able-bodied. I guess this is supposed to give me, as a fat reader, an opportunity to experience the fantasy of secondary social approval, of being accepted because you have a privileged partner. This is partly why I love the subversion of Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Xeni, which has a fat hero.
January isn’t over, and I’m still looking for more fat positive books to read.
Bitchery, what are your faves? And does anyone know where I can get a copy of the sadly out of print Soft on Soft?
Romance novels with fat representation are an emotional minefield for me, as a fat woman. I wish I could properly expound on that here, but I’ll save it for my therapist. The bottom line is, I frequently don’t feel “seen” by these books and they don’t provide the escape from reality that I am looking for when I read romance. I think representation is super important and I’m glad it’s happening, but it’s just hard for me to engage with it.
Not having to suffer from diet culture nearly as much as women do is one of those privileges that guys like me don’t think about a lot. (Or maybe the other guys do, and it’s just me who’s clueless?)
It’s not just that, if we’re fat, we’re mocked less for it. It’s also the way that–in my experience at least–women are the only ones who, regardless of their weight, are expected to perform a little “I really shouldn’t” monologue every time they eat something sweet, to make it clear that just because they had a piece of cake doesn’t mean they’re the kind of person who EATS CAKE.
As a guy, you can generally just… have some cake. And eat it.
And I’m aware that the women reading this comment don’t actually need me to tell you how weird and stupid this part of diet culture is. I’m just sort of ruminating.
I remember one day when a friend of mine and I were meeting, and there were cookies. “Oh,” she said, “I’d like to have another cookie… But I don’t know…”
I could tell this was gonna take a while, so to nip it in the bud I said “Truebeautyisontheinside, youlookgreatjustthewayyouare, eat the damn cookie.”
(Don’t worry, people; she laughed and had a cookie. We were close enough that I could say this kind of thing.)
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner should work here. The heroine is fat and the hero is not able-bodied, due to a war wound. There’s also a lot about food in the book.
Seconding rec of Sweet Disorder. It’s been many years since I read it so I don’t remember if there is any fat-shaming, but I do have distinct impressions of very positive vibes around the heroine’s body.
HATE F*@K (that’s the exact spelling) by Ainsley Booth (aka, Zoe York) is an erotic romance between a curvy woman and her bodyguard. She doesn’t monitor her food intake—and the hero, unprompted, brings her ice cream when she has her period. The only person who uses the word “fat” in a pejorative manner is the villain (who is awful in many ways) and he eventually gets what’s coming to him.
Loud sigh time: when I went to Amazon to check the book’s title, I saw it has a new cover (the previous one just featured a male face) with a man and a woman—and the woman is decidedly not curvy/fat.
On the other hand, Sierra Simone’s MISADVENTURES OF A CURVY GIRL has good fat representation plus an MMF-ménage. And the cover leaves no doubt as to the heroine’s body type.
“However, there were a couple of points where Red picks Chloe up and carries her, which is something I tend to side-eye with fat characters.”
Can you expand on this, Shana? Why the eye roll, when it seems like a perfectly stereotypical romance novel action? Is it just because they’re fat and so a guy “should” have a harder time doing it? (If so, I’ll point out that I am taller than my husband and I am fat; he can pick me up. I don’t like being carried and generally won’t let him, but that’s about me, not his ability.)
As someone in a fat female disabled body, I actually appreciate reading books that normalize the idea thin, muscular hot men could love “someone like that.” Stars know how often people comment on it, and assume my husband must have a fetish. (Or try to convince him I’m a perfectly fine person to have as a friend but he should divorce me because he “could do so much better” and easily find a thin/able-bodied partner. )
I can totally also understand why if that was the only dynamic (fat cis woman, thin cis man), it would be annoying, but I feel like I run into the fat cis woman, normal or fat cis male love interest a lot more than the fat cis female body, thin muscular cis male body.
@EJ—I totally hear you. I know some people found SPOILER ALERT, for example, affirming and uplifting and when I finished it, I just wanted to take a shower, I felt so gross about the fat shaming the character endures. Romance for me is about the escapism. Soaking in fat shaming (even when it’s roundly denounced) is not escaping!
Of note, I would suggest WRONG TO NEED YOU by Alisha Rai—the main character, Sadia, clearly isn’t thin, but it’s just a fact in the book, rather than a Thing in the plot.
In the UK January is all about dry January and diets and I’m like “I’ve still got chocolate from Christmas” and it’s such a miserable month , the sun literally hasn’t shone since December so no I’m not going to make any lifestyle changes thank you. And don’t get me started on Valentine’s day…
It’s sad that we don’t have any books like this where the plus sized character goes “you know what? I’m ok!” And eats the cake. Even worse , the character only accepts themselves once they have gained validation from thin partner. I’ve also noted that the majority of fat shaming tends to arise from so called women’s fiction. There was once one I read where a plus sized women inherited a gym from a relative and everyone goes on about her weight, even her love interest! So would have loved her to leave them all to it, Get in her motorbike (with a box of cake) and for off into the sunset. Unfortunately, I think she keeps the gym and has a baby epilogue (*throws kindle*). It was called love handles but I’ve forgotten the author.
@FashionablyEvil
I couldn’t finish SPOILER ALERT, but I read ALL THE FEELS and couldn’t stomach the constant reminders that not only was the heroine fat, she was also ugly. So ugly that people (family members and strangers) told her to her face that she was ugly. There are no real life celebrity relationships that I know of like this, possibly because rich, famous, attractive people tend to be very good at finding each other, but maybe also because a woman in that position would likely receive horrific unending harassment for it? In the end the heroine “learns” to stand up for herself, but dear God at what cost to her mental health?
Get on her bike and go off into the sunset.
@Kit
I genuinely enjoy romance, but there’s a moment in almost every book I read when I think the heroine should fuck off with some cake on a motorbike.
“One to Watch” by Kate Stayman-London features a plus-size fashion blogger who ends up as the lead on a “Bachelorette” type ‘reality TV show’ after a drunken critique she wrote on the lack of diversity on those shows goes viral. My niece loved it; I found it to be slightly above average. I’m tired of women succeeding almost by accident. It would have changed nothing, plot-wise, for her to have written and posted the critique soberly.
Thank you for this post. I am so very tired of hefty heroines who’s body shape is their defining character trait. And if a heroine is ‘curvy’ generally authors feel the need to tell you their dress size or weight. We never hear the hero’s clothing size. And don’t get me started about shapeshifters who ‘can eat anything’ and that is the only reason they allow themselves to eat dessert.
It’s one of the reasons I read M/M romance, although the emphasis on sizing and being in shape is starting to be more pervasive there as well.
@EJ, Hugh Jackman has spoken over the years how horribly his wife (older, not “attractive” enough for a famous person) has been treated by his fans/randoms. Also, Pierce Brosnan’s wife is fat; she gained weight after having their kids. People fat shame her, especially since she was previously thin and therefore more beautiful before having kids. I remember Pierce saying in an interview — IN AN INTERVIEW!!! – that he loves his wife’s body b/c it’s the body that brought him their children (or something along those lines). It was appalling that he even had to say anything about her body, let alone defend his attraction to his spouse.
I’d recommend “Patience and Esther” by SW Searle, a graphic novel lesbian romance set in the Edwardian era in which one of the heroines is fat. It’s a very sweet read and seeing the characters’ bodies on the page helpfully avoids all of the many grating ways writers tend to talk about fat women even when they’re trying to be positive, imo.
I read “One to Watch” and it was fine — representation-wise, “fat but hyper-feminine, hyper-insecure fashion blogger” is not gonna do much for most people, but the premise of the protagonist going on reality TV doesn’t really work if she isn’t camera-ready in terms of her sense of style and appearance-consciousness. “If the Shoes Fits” by Julie Murphy sounds like a similar premise with a plus-size woman appearing on a Bachelor-like reality show; I’m curious about that one, which has the heroine as one of the contestants instead of the lead.
It’s been a few years since I read them, but Sugar Jamison’s A Perfect Fit series has a range of “curvy” women as heroines that I enjoyed with each at a different level of self-acceptance. And the one with the least amount of self-acceptance, if I remember, was the youngest and had the most family trauma that really offered more reasons than weight for her issues. And she was significantly younger than the hero, too, which added to the insecurity. I am always curious about weight portrayal of women in romance and any fiction actually. I haven’t found the book that speaks to me but I appreciate the efforts and perspectives. I haven’t read all of the titles here but they are going on my list…
@Mikey, I worked first in a chocolate store and then in a candy store for almost 8 years. I got sooo tired of all the women who felt they needed to explain to me that they “never” ate candy but were making a “small” exception. Or the one’s who made sure I knew they were buying the candy for someone else, like daring me to think they would eat it. I always replied “That’s sad. Candy should be eaten daily!I do!” It’s always the rail thin women who felt the need to say this. My favorite customers were the ones who came in because candy and chocolate gave them joy, no matter what their body size.
We did have one woman who, when my manager told her about a sale (he was average build), say “Nobody needs to eat that much candy. They’ll end up looking like you!” He walked away from her and watched her on the closed circuit TV until she gave up waiting at the register and left the store.
I picked up a book for the Kindle which went on and on about how the heroine (who cancelled her wedding) looked really good in her bikini because she had worked out and eaten no fat or carbs for “three months.”
The hero likes her initially because of her butt in said bikini.
Then they go to dinner and we get his thoughts about how amazing it is she isn’t worried about what she’s eating.
It gave me bulimia vibes.
I don’t like how many contemporary romance authors use eating in their stories. The heroine is sad, upset, depressed, whatever, so they eat lots of “junk food.” This is often played for laughs, but also with shaming, because the character always feels guilty and weak for eating the sweets. The heroine also makes some mental note to “run an extra couple of miles tomorrow.” The authors obviously do not know anything about the calories in food or how many are burned while exercising. And linking the eating of sweets with immediate dieting/exercise talk is shaming.
Thank you for this post, as part of the new year, I’ve been finding new doctors and dealing with feeling bad for my shape, which has been messing with me.
Its nice to read about books and other people that can get beyond that. As someone who loves to cook and eat, books that treat food as something joyous are great. Sweet Disorder is a wonderful read in that way.
At the moment, I don’t have any recs to add but will put some of these on my list.
Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall has a chubby hero who loves himself and knows exactly how attractive he is to other men (very). But m/f romances are very dedicated to the lean or bodybuilding man type and it gets tiresome when the fiction is supposed to be realistic.
Extensive recent twitter conversation on body diversity among romance heroes
I wanted to say thank you for pointing out how rarely there are fat or even chubby male leads in m/f romance, because it’s something I’ve mentioned in these discussions before and it bothers me in the sense that it suggests a genuine valuation of thinness or fitness. Because if we believe that all body shapes are attractive and have value and that diet culture is toxic BS, then why is only a certain type of cishet male shape attractive? (I’m lesbian, and also, have aphantasia, so I’m not seeing anything when any of these people are described, but it’s the principle of the matter, honestly.)
I will say, Marie Lipscomb tends to write m/f romances with husky dudes. I feel like her guys lean more toward like…the way serious lifters often can look? Kinda chubby with serious muscle underneath? But also, like I said, aphantasia, so I feel like nothing I say can be trusted here.
If you need a non-fiction antidote to the diet and body-shaming talk, I cannot recommend the Maintenance Phase podcast enough. They confront all of this head-on with excellent research and rapier wit. I listen to most episodes with my 14 year old daughter and both of us have learned so much. Aubrey’s book What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat is also excellent, especially for straight-size or small fat folks who are looking to be better allies.
Re the way that authors don’t seem to know anything about calories and the effect of exercise, I’m sure that’s probably true and I also think they’re honestly replicating the ways that our society talks about this stuff, inaccurately and unhelpfully.
As a guy, I want to say a huge thanks for the talk about how, in romance fiction, it seems that the support for fat romance characters mostly disappears if the characters are men. It’s good to know that I’m not imagining things. (Well, okay, it’d have been good if the lack of diverse heroes HAD been my imagination, but you get what I mean.)
I mean, it’s pretty darn hard to find a hero shorter than 6 ft, (or shorter than the heroine,) or who’s got a proper belly. I mean, literally speaking it’s not that hard to simply find one or two, but they’re not many.
Also, you gotta admit, it’s a bit funny that there are more werewolf heroes in romance fiction than there are non-buff guys. I mean, how can fat guys be more niche than werewolves? Not trying to shame werewolf fans, to be clear. But you gotta admit, it’s a bit funny when you look at it from a distance, right? 🙂
Seriously though, I like to read romance novels now and then–and flip through them in the grocery store–and as the average woman probably knows even better than I do, if you never see people like yourself portrayed as the character the reader is meant to feel attraction to, then that often makes you feel that except for a few people with a niche interest, you’re generally agreed to be ugly and unattractive.
I’d have raised the subject earlier, but unless I phrase myself just right, it’ll come off as me trying to shame women readers for not following some set of attraction-rules that I’ve just made up.
I mean, who am I to tell people what books to read, and to write? If a woman prefers tall, buff men, then is she supposed to read books about heroes she finds unattractive, just to be nice? Isn’t her reading for HER pleasure?
Those are the kinds of things people might say in reply, and, well… those are valid points. When push comes to shove, a book written to be a fantasy for women needs to take into account what those women want to fantasize about. Hence my hesitation.
So yeah. I hope this post doesn’t come off as a guy trying to police a woman’s genre, but rather as a non-buff person sharing his feelings about characters like him in the romance genre. (Been rewriting the post for half an hour, trying to avoid coming off as whiny or policing.)
(And to be clear, I’m tall and thin, so I can’t speak directly for short dudes or fat dudes.)
Well, it’s emphatically not true that all women read romance because they want to fantasize about the hero! (Some do, some don’t) Also, I fear, the improvement of the diversity of heroines in m/f romance has gotten critical attention but less attention has been paid to diversity of the heroines’ desire — are they all represented as lusting after tall hyper-muscular men? Are there I ways that their desires are depicted that are too standardized?
@Mikey: there’s a new-ish contemporary series I’ve seen floating around called DAD BODS: MEN BUILT FOR COMFORT (each book is by a different author). I assume from the blurbs that the men are a little softer around the middle than the usual romance hero.
Ah, so many wonderful books to put on my Mt. TBR… thank you, thank you, everyone.
As for fat women being picked up… a lover who I out-weighted by almost 100lbs picked me up (the sweeping kind that was totally unexpected) and tossed me about 6 feet onto the bed. So, no eye-rolling here, just a breath-taking sigh for the memory.
I’ve noticed that many of the SF erotica (with cyborgs or green horned (or is that horny?) men have larger women (no matter if they’re called fat or curvy or larger than life).
Zoe Chant has lots & lots of steamy shifter romances whose curvaceous heroines are enthusiastically appreciated [& also perfectly capable of rescuing themselves and their men].
I liked how in THE WEATHER GIRL the male love interest has a belly he’s shy about. How the heroine accepts it as part of the man she’s attracted to is one of the most charming parts of the book. It’s done with a very light hand, and I also appreciated that.
And as a fat woman who is mostly comfortable with my fatness, I still have moments when I’m aware of being a fat woman at a cupcake store. It wouldn’t feel realistic to me to read about a fat heroine who never had those moments. I know I’m lucky that it’s not a triggering thing for me to read about, though.
I recently reread Role Model and had totally forgotten that Harris is described as stocky. His weight was rarely an issue—Troy sure as hell didn’t care.
Hardwood by KM Neuhold also features a fat main character. It’s been a while, but I don’t remember him dieting and his love interest didn’t care about his size.
Good Night and Navarro by Kelly Fox both feature characters who have more normal bodies (not all muscles everywhere) and they’re both described as having a gut. (Navarro’s other MC has a disorder that effects the color of his skin and hair). Both of these characters are a little uncomfortable with their bodies, but neither are shown to diet or work out like crazy to change themselves. Their love interests don’t care that their bodies aren’t perfect (in Goodnight, the love interest develops an immediate crush in the sweet cowboy next door).
As for m/f, there’s Sarah MacLean’s Brazen and the Beast. The heroine is a kickass plus sized woman who has declared it The Year of Hattie.
Protagonists who are positive about their own and each other’s bodies are great, though what really tempts me is the book about two teachers, both professionals in it for the long haul, not just til “something better comes along”.
@M
I’m having a difficult day and I almost started crying about how much Pierce Brosnan loves his wife. I saw him speak during college once and he spoke movingly about losing his first wife to cancer. And I’ve read interviews with him talking in glowing terms about his current wife.
I didn’t know people said shit about Hugh Jackman’s wife although I know she’s older than he is.
I hate everything, but I love love. *cries more*
@Msb
This is time for me to plug Abbott Elementary on NBC. It’s about teachers who love teaching! Even though their school is district is AWFUL. And their might be teacher on teacher romance coming!
“Orc-ward Encounters,” by Sam Hall, is a fun, fluffy portal-fantasy romance/erotica novel where the heroine has PCOS and is fat, there is one scene at the beginning where people are unkind to her, but when she finds herself in an alternate world, she is viewed as immensely desirable and is courted by a band of three very appreciative orcs.
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I just read an ARC of “Errant, Vol. 1” (first volume of a fantasy novella series by L.K. Fleet, pen name for Felicia Davin, K. R. Collins and Valentine Wheeler collaborating), where one of the female main characters/love interest is fat and brown (and only EVER described in positive terms as being devastatingly attractive, her weight is not a plot point.) The viewpoint character is a tall, muscular swordswoman. F/F, bi/lesbian (the MC has had prior male partners, offscreen.) CW: memories of domestic violence.
Pub date is February 15.
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If you enjoy BDSM romances, I really enjoy the body (and age!) diversity in Cherise Sinclair’s “Shadowlands” series — Sally and Rainie are both plus-sized heroines.
Their viewpoint books are “If Only” and “Show Me, Baby.”
(Note: the series has an ongoing plotline that contains spoilers for previous books, if read out of order.)
I struggle to deal with *any* of this. Frequently being made to feel bad (by people outside my immediate family, thank goodness) for many aspects of my body (being fat was just the most common one) for all my childhood/teenage years did nothing good…and then nowadays, after I’ve found how greatly my mental and physical health has improved by stopping eating sugary dessert foods (and yes also by the weight loss that happened by accident at the same time), I feel pressure to never speak about it lest I’m somehow part of some “toxic diet culture.” (I see people online, looking frightened, trying to talk about their health and hurriedly stating “there are no bad foods!” over and over.) So I shut up, no matter how the “just eat some cookies and cake” type comments make me feel (like telling someone who’s suffered from alcohol abuse to “just have a cocktail”) or how little I see myself in characters who embrace being fat and unhealthy, just as I don’t get someone who would go into a tizzy over some lamb pie. I hate the idea that everyone who’s mindful of what they eat or trying to be healthier is doing it in order to try to look a certain way, attract a sexual partner, or act as they “should”.
I’m over here just trying to be sane, alive, and myself–not *anyone’s* idea of what’s socially righteous or attractive.
Also, I agree there should be more diversity in body types for male characters!
@AtasB I’ve had similar experiences, and very much sympathize/agree. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Jennifer Cruise’s Bet Me fits in here. I read it (for the first time) when it came out and I felt SEEN.
@EJ — yes, Deb is 10 years older than Hugh. Same age difference I have with my Aussie husband; he’s taken to telling nosy people that if it’s good enough for Hugh, it’s good enough for him.
And people used to treat Deb atrociously, until Hugh finally started leaving interviews and generally refusing to allow anyone to say anything negative about her. “Fans” still go off though (with the often bizarre argument he “deserves” to be with Cate Blanchett, because they think her husband is too ugly for her, and since they’re both Australian,…)
I enjoyed both One To Watch by Kate Stayman-London and If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy but if you are looking for fat positive rep, I’d give the nod to If the Shoe Fits. The protagonist in that one is very much uncaring of her looks and size and never really thinks about it, although some of the other women on the reality show make a few cutting comments. In One To Watch, the entire premise of the book is that she’s the first bachelorette on a dating show to be plus-sized so the book is by necessity somewhat more focused on that theme and some of her potential matches are quite vocal about not being attracted to her.