Chicklit Club
 

NEW RELEASE

 
 

Dietland - Sarai Walker (2015)

 

Plum Kettle works as an agony aunt, answering fan mail for a teen magazine editor. She can do the work from home – or her favourite cafe – which is fortunate as Plum doesn’t look like the usual calorie-starved fashionistas who populate the world of glossy magazines. Plum is just waiting for the day of her weight-loss surgery, when she can shed her fat persona and her real life can truly begin. But realising she’s being followed by a mysterious woman in combat boots, Plum instead finds herself drawn into a whirlwind of intrigue, as a dangerous feminist group terrorises those who mistreats women. Part insight into a woman dealing with society’s unkindness towards obese people and part disturbing feminist manifesto, this is one to pick up if you’re after something darker than your usual fare. Made for book club debate.

 
 

Dietland, the debut novel by Sarai Walker, focuses on society's obsession with weight loss and beauty. The summary says: "Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you're fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls' magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin. Then, when a mysterious woman starts following her, Plum finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into an underground community of women who live life on their own terms. There Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with her past, her doubts, and the real costs of becoming 'beautiful'. At the same time, a dangerous guerrilla group called 'Jennifer' begins to terrorise a world that mistreats women, and as Plum grapples with her personal struggles, she becomes entangled in a sinister plot. The consequences are explosive." Dietland is out in May 2015.

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