Big Fat Manifesto

Jamie is in her final year of high school. She's playing the lead role in the school musical. She's features editor for the student newspaper. She's struggling with college applications. She's in a committed relationship with her boyfriend. And like so many of her friends, she's trying to work out where she fits in the world.

She is also enormously, irreversibly, sometimes angrily (and occasionally delightedly) overweight.

Her most immediate need is a journalism scholarship to college, so she writes an explosive and controversial column every week in the school paper in the persona of Fat Girl. She leaves nothing out - including her reaction to her boyfriend's gastric banding surgery, which aims to help him lose weight but could end up killing him. When her column raises all kinds of public questions, Jamie finds herself fighting for her right to be herself - and not quietly.

With a new chance at love emerging unexpectedly, and satisfaction in her size losing ground to real frustration, Jamie must find her own private way in the world. At heart is she still Jamie, or is Fat Girl taking over?

Tapping into her own experience with losing weight, her training as a psychotherapist, and the current fascination in the media with teens trying drastic weight-loss measures, Susan Vaught writes gripping, hilarious prose that isn't afraid to ask the big questions about life.

Reviews

Praise for BIG FAT MANIFESTO:
Jamie is a strong, interesting character who grows over the course of the novel, recognizing her own contradictions. This is a powerful story for readers of any weight.’ SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL