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Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Theme: Friends to Lovers, Second Chance
Archetype: Diverse Protagonists, Teacher/Professor
CW: Homophobia, racism, toxic family, disordered eating
Big Girl Pill is the first book I’ve picked up in a long time where I didn’t bother to read the blurb before diving in. Even though the cover doesn’t do it for me, I wasn’t concerned because I’ve enjoyed KD Williamson’s other books (she’s most known for a series where she pairs up doctors and police officers, which is like catnip for many an f/f romance reader). Happily, Big Girl Pill lived up to all my expectations and then some. In addition to delivering a satisfying romance, it does an excellent job of showing that you don’t have to keep toxic people in your life, no matter who they are.
Maya had had a massive crush on her best friend in college. Everything came crashing down two years ago after the single time they’d slept together, when Nina’s harsh words the following day poisoned their friendship. Maya kept up a superficial connection with Nina after college because they’d meant too much to each other before the incident for Maya to end it altogether, and now she’s hoping to shed the last of her feelings for Nina by agreeing to be her bridesmaid. Of course, this plan is stupid because that’s not how feelings work, but whatever. Helping with the last few weeks of wedding prep is what brings Maya back to her hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. She takes the “fake it til you make it” approach to her feelings, saying a lot of variations of “I’m over it” to her brothers and Nina’s cousin Rachel whenever they ask how she’s doing.
Nina seems to be more interested in Maya’s return to Asheville than she is in marrying her fiance, Drew. I can’t say I blame her, since he’s boring and doesn’t listen to her. The only thing I can say to his credit is that Drew is supportive of Nina’s desire to repair her friendship with Maya and understands that it’s important to her. Even so, I doubt he knows why they had a falling out in the first place. It turns out to be a good thing for Nina that her cousin Rachel and Maya come to town a few weeks before the wedding, because they’ve both always seen Nina’s potential to be much stronger than her narcissistic mother or Drew ever gave her space to be. Something unlocks inside Nina as she spends time with them again and she starts to stand up for herself. If only Maya and Nina can lay the past to rest, maybe they can both find a way to be comfortable around each other again.
Before I say anything else, I need to put it out there that Nina never cheats on Drew. Does she have feelings for Maya before she breaks up with him? Yeah, probably. But that’s not why she ends their relationship, doing it instead because he’s not right for her. I loved that because he sucks. Drew is very much A Nice Guy, and I don’t mean that in a good way. We often see Drew say and do things that go directly against what Nina has already said she likes, wants or needs. For example, he signs her up for a committee at the school where they both teach after she’d told him she didn’t want to do it, claiming he had her best interests at heart. It’s infuriating to watch him patronize and manipulate her, not to mention that Nina and Drew have ZERO chemistry. I was sad to see Nina put up with all of that nonsense. When I saw her interact with her mother Sarah, I finally understood why she was with Drew, because Drew is clearly Sarah’s pick for Nina.
Speaking of Sarah, that leads me to my favourite aspect of this book, which I mentioned above. Big Girl Pill does a fabulous job of showing that you don’t owe anyone a relationship, including family. Nina’s relationship with her mother is thoroughly toxic. She lets Sarah’s insults roll off as well as she can, choosing the path of least resistance because she doesn’t want to deal with her mother at peak awful. Sarah has the same habit as Drew of not listening to Nina, going so far as to push her to eat and drink things she hates.
“Mmm, that is just delightful.” Sarah made a small sound of satisfaction. When Nina glanced at her, she was placing a glass of orange juice back on the table. She then pushed it Nina’s way. “I dare you to tell me it’s not.”
“I don’t like orange juice, Mom.” Shouldn’t a mother remember these things?
“Nonsense. Try it.”
Nina stared.
“Go on.” Sarah gestured at her, hurrying her.
Beating down her frustration, she reached for the glass, brought it to her lips, and hoped she put on a convincing show of drinking. After setting the glass back down, Nina licked her lips. “You’re right. Not too sour or too sweet.”
“Exactly.” Sarah smiled as if she’d gotten the best gift.
While I believe Drew at least cares for Nina (inasmuch as you can care about someone you’re marrying because they’re easy to keep in line), Sarah is 100% emotionally abusive. She’s also a bigot, having turned her back on Rachel years ago for being a lesbian, even though Rachel is her niece. She’s also homophobic and racist when she talks about Maya because Maya is a Black lesbian. I was SO relieved that when Nina finally stands up to Sarah and Drew, she doesn’t back down or try to come to a compromise that gives them a pass for their bad behaviours. If I’d read it in time for the Rec League post about books that showcase healthy boundaries, I would have wholeheartedly recommended it there.
Maya’s relationship with her family is in sharp contrast to Nina and Sarah’s. Maya’s parents died well before the events of Big Girl Pill, but she’s still close with her brothers, Winston and Terrance. Could they be closer? Sure, especially since Maya lives in Tennessee. But the three of them talk about it and make firm efforts to be involved in each other’s lives. The only person in Nina’s life who’s at all like Winston or Terrance is Rachel, who is the kind of family who’s well worth having in your life. She’s not afraid to say the tough stuff that Nina needs to hear, while also building her up and encouraging her to stand up for herself.
There are two things I particularly like about Nina and how she’s portrayed that are worth noting. Nina isn’t comfortable with her body, which makes sense considering how her mother always runs down her appearance and how Drew keeps buying salad for her even though she hates it. She slowly starts to be kind to herself, though, because Maya regularly encourages Nina to love her body just as it is.
Nina groaned. “Oh, God, I can feel all that Alfredo sauce going to my thighs as we speak.”
“So? You have nice thighs. There’s not a damn thing wrong with how you look. If Ashley Graham can rock her curves on the covers of magazines, so can you.”
“I wish everybody thought that way.” Nina reddened, but she was smiling.
Maya leaned forward. “You don’t need everybody to think that way. Just you.”
And that right there? I love it because Maya isn’t saying that Nina should feel good about how she looks because of anyone else’s standards. At every turn in this book, Maya just wants Nina to be her best self, no matter what she looks like. That includes understanding that she doesn’t need to change her body just because Sarah says shitty things about it.
The other thing I appreciate about Nina is how she comes out to herself and the people around her as bisexual. I’ve read way too many f/f romances where a character will go from thinking they’re straight to saying “oh, I don’t know what I am. I just know that I love YOU!” and I’m a little tired of it. As a bisexual reader, I like seeing myself on the page, especially with bi rep that isn’t about how we’re greedy or can’t make up our minds. Also, I appreciated seeing Nina’s journey to acknowledging her sexuality and how she admits that she’d been actively repressing that side of herself for a long time.
I know I’m talking a lot about Nina and that’s largely because Big Girl Pill is her book. Maya’s journey is mainly about:
- Making peace with her feelings for Nina so they stop having a hold over her.
- Feeling more grounded with her life by reconnecting with her family, since she hasn’t spent much time with them since college.
While we see things from both of their perspectives, Nina is the one who changes and grows the most. This means taking control of her life and fully acknowledging and trying to make amends for how badly she’d fucked things up with Maya in college. I can’t really explain any of that without spoilers, so I’m throwing it behind the spoiler tag.
If you need a damn good grovel or a grand gesture, Big Girl Pill will likely disappoint you. Instead, Nina apologizes to Maya a lot. To the point where Maya tells her at one point to stop apologizing, saying “Actions speak louder than words. You’ve said your piece.”
But I didn’t mind the lack of grovel because the way they each talk about their feelings came across as very real. Nina DOES feel bad and has all along. Maya wants to forgive Nina, even if it’s hard for her to actually do it. So, I appreciated that they were finally able to get past it all thanks to a very difficult conversation about a quarter of the way through the book. Nina admits that she’d lashed out after they slept together because she’d liked it so much that it had scared her. She wasn’t able to face the possibility of being bisexual or gay, so she took her fear and directed it all at Maya. Nina owns her bad behaviour and takes on everything Maya has to say when she explains how much Nina’s words had hurt her. That conversation lays the foundation for rebuilding their friendship, so their romantic feelings can build on top of that after Nina dropkicks Drew to the curb.
For the angst lovers out there, you should know that there is no break up and then make up. All of the story’s tension is driven by the question of whether Nina can get her shit together and grab hold of the life she wants. And honestly? I wasn’t sure she could do it at many points in the first half, since she’s so passive. Because the story is driven by character growth rather than plot, it worked very well for me, but I don’t know how well it will work for everyone else.
In terms of what didn’t work for me, the only thing I can think of is the way the characters wrote their texts to each other. I know this probably makes me sound like an elitist dick, but every time there was a text conversation and someone would say something like “Nothing just checking in with u 2 make sure u got home alrite,” I would get pulled out of the book because autocorrect exists on all of our phones and it would have taken care of at least some of those words. I fully recognize that this is a preference thing, but it happens a lot.
Big Girl Pill is my favourite book so far of 2020 (I know, it’s early, but I’m excited), and I was sorry to see it end because I would happily read many more pages about these people. So, I’m crossing my fingers that Rachel will get her own book, because I want more time with her, Maya, and Nina.
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Using that kind of text lingo comes across as an older writer being unfamiliar with how millennials (I assume?) actually text. Personally, I only use “u” for ironic emphasis and/or to conjure up the aesthetic of early 2000s memes.