by Jennifer Weiner
I saw this book in the book store in Seattle several years ago, but I didn't buy it. I looked at the title and the back cover and my stomach sank at the thought of reading another book about a "large sized" woman where it turned out that she was really just a neurotic size 12 who has no idea what being fat is.I found Good In Bed at the Oxfam charity shop near me and I was desparate for a fluffy best-selling type novel to read, so I picked it up. I'm glad I did. First of all, the heroine of the story, Cannie Shapiro, is genuinely large. About 5 sizes smaller than me, but still large enough to know what prejudice is about.
I knew everything that was going to happen in this story. It was predictable because it is a fat girl fantasy. So most fat girls will see where it is going because that's how they fantasize about themselves. But at the same time, it isn't a dull kind of predictablility, where you feel like there's no point reading it. Cannie feels like an old friend, and you have to keep reading because you want to make sure she really is okay at the end.
I don't want to give away too much about the story, but I do want to tell you that in the end, Cannie is still fat. That was important to me. In too many love stories and movies, the answer in the end is that the fat girl loses weight and then lives happily ever after. But it overlooks the fact that millions of fat girls live happily ever after and are still fat. I loved it for the same reason I loved 50 First Dates. It shows that a miracle cure isn't always needed for a happy ending.
I'm fat. I knew for years that I have a "pretty face" and I could probably get any man I want if I dropped 80 pounds or so. But I didn't want "any man". I wanted the man who loved me with the 80 extra pounds, not a man who doesn't notice me until I lose it. And I married that man last year. That's why I love the ending where the hero is still damaged, but okay with it.
Good In Bed is worth your time. It is funny and entertaining, but also deeply likable and in some parts may even make you cry. I just hope that the author stands by her statements that this book will not be made into a movie until she finds a genuinely fat actress to play the part. I don't want to see it made with some skinny twig who gains 8 pounds or even worse, some stick girl in a fat suit.
