I had The Dirty Girls Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez on the calendar for my Fat Women in Fiction pick, but the author chose to burden her six (!) main characters with eating disorders, abusive husbands, and identity crises. Valdes-Rodriguez’s characters spout microaggressions everywhere, and there’s no need for me to tolerate horrible behavior and slurs being normalized. DNF.
I purchased They Don’t Make Plus-size Spacesuits by Ali Thompson, a fat activist known as Ok2BeFat, just recently. Her stories, however, reiterate all the vitriolic garbage society says about fat people. Why not use her stories to create fully-realized, empowered fat characters? The ideas are simplistic, too. Instead of a family working to make their daughter less fat, she eats diet food and exercises to be less…tall. Just why? DNF for feeling horrible while reading. Her content warnings don’t excuse the abusive thoughts and actions in the stories.
If novels are like a professional boxing match and short stories are like a “see you in the parking lot after school” fight, then flash fiction is the sucker punch of the story world. However, that sucker punch can’t always be killing off the character we’ve known for one paragraph. It gets old. Tender Cuts by Jayne Martin tends to rely to heavily on shock value when flash fiction can be more, you know, tender. DNF for losing interest.
Grab the Lapels 
For a book about fat women, the waists of the women on the cover of The Dirty Girls Social Club are terrifyingly skinny…
LikeLike
So very true! I read through the reviews on Goodreads, and folks pointed out that this book had fat characters who were represented positively. And yet there’s the bulimia, in addition to bullying, using slurs, etc.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a shame 😦
LikeLike
You’re the master of the dnf review. Well said!
LikeLike
I occasionally feel like a jerk when I DNF, review, and rate a book, but I spent money on two of the books reviewed here and would not have bought them had someone else negatively reviewed the titles and warned me as to why they didn’t like them.
LikeLike
It’s so frustrating when books claim to challenge prejudiced views, only to reinforce or indulge them. I hope your next reads are more successful!
LikeLike
Me, too. I’m especially blown away/surprised by Thompson’s book. She sends out daily reminders on Twitter that it’s “okay to be fat,” and yet her stories are about dieting, disapproval, disappointment, and fatphobia. She wrote in the introduction that she wants other fat readers to recognize her experiences, but does she not think they’ve had their own such experiences? And why would they want to relive them??
LikeLiked by 1 person
Highlighting issues without offering solutions or an alternative way of looking at an experience does seem like a sadly a wasted opportunity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I absolutely loved this post. I thought the first cover was striking until I read the comment about waists on the women. The cover makes me feel it should be about rich, sassy, kiss ass woman who take charge. The second book just sounds disappointing and ick. The third book’s description made me laugh in terms of how ye catergorized things. I am so glad that ye share why ye DNF books.
x The Captain
LikeLike
I have all these ideas about how to explain writing, but because it’s all subjective, I just assume no one wants to hear my ideas. Perhaps I will describe my simile more clearly in a follow-up post, because I didn’t include my reasons.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It made perfect sense in me weird noggin and so I loved it. But I wouldn’t mind a post on it because that would be fun!
x The Captain
LikeLike
Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perfectly understand why you felt unable to continue with these. I am getting more and more comfortable with abandoning books….
LikeLike
I spent so many years plowing through books, and now I’m comfortable stopping after a few pages, if need be. If I quite something after just a couple of pages, I typically mark DNF on Goodreads and don’t do any sort of review.
LikeLike
That’s my approach too – if I read say half of it then I think I have enough insight to do a review of some kind
LikeLike
I love mini DNF reviews! Why does that cover have impossibly skinny women if it’s about something entirely different? And how does one exercise to be less tall, wtf?
LikeLike
No idea, and no idea. Thanks for reading my reviews! That article from Pages Unbound really did encourage me to review books I DNF because 2 out of 3 books in my review are ones I paid for and wish I hadn’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What article? Do ye have a link. I have no problem not finishing but I do enjoy reading about why people do or don’t. I so wish more people would review the DNFs. Arrr!
x The Captain
LikeLike
I linked it in my review @ Pages Unbound.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I started doing mini DNF reviews for the same reason. I get so frustrated when I spend money on something that a helpful review could’ve told me was not for me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh no, two fat book fails, grrrr. I’m sorry about the Dirty Girls, I can’t remember much about it and now I know I won’t go back to it! I do like DNF round-ups, though!
LikeLike
I forgot you said you’d read Valdes-Rodriguez’s book, Liz. There were times when Lauren’s narration was fun and witty, but I ran out of patience with her bulimia and name calling.
I’m glad my DNF round-up posts are popular; a few people noted this, and I appreciate the feedback.
LikeLiked by 1 person
DNF Bam! I love it. It’s so empowering. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
LikeLike
I love that “ain’t nobody got time for that” is a whole thing, lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person