The books on this list are not recommended by me. I choose not to recommend a book when the character focuses on dieting as a redeemable quality without learning otherwise, only finds self-acceptance through love or dating, contains fat-shaming that is not discussed or goes unpunished, or promotes surgery as a means of “correcting” the “unruly” fat body. I also don’t recommend poorly written books with fat people. Fat readers deserve good editing, realistic characters, and books with focus, too.

I ask that you read these books yourself to make your own determination. I will never suggest that my recommendations are a reason for readers to avoid certain books, as in the United States we promote The Freedom to Read. I do not ban books nor shame anyone for reading a book or author I don’t like. If you have more questions about the books on this list, please ask!

• What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology co-edited by Donna Jarrell
  • Reasoning: the collection looks at fat people from all perspectives, including some stories in which a fat person is shamed, belittled, or even changed as a result of thin or straight-sized characters.
• Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology co-edited by Donna Jarrell
  • Reasoning: same as her fiction anthology above.
• Misadventures of Fatwoman by Elizabeth Julie Powell
  • Reasoning: Powell’s main character hates her fat body, assumes her husband is going to leave her because she’s fat, and only feels validated when her husband says her body is fine and he loves her.
• The Fat Friend: A Novel by Julie Edelson
  • Reasoning: While one character is fat, she starts losing weight and restricting her eating. The ending confused my thoughts on why the character lost weight — we get one reason by were led to think another.
• 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
  • Reasoning: I don’t care what Awad says in all of her interviews, she implies her character must be friendless, depressed, and slutty because she is fat. The character gets thin through excessive exercising.
• Outside the Bones by Lyn Di Iorio
  • Reasoning: The main character fat shames herself.
• Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes by Sue Watson
  • Reasoning: Loads of diet talk and food shaming.
• Losing It by Lindsay Faith Rech
  • Reasoning: Diet talk, losing weight and being “better,” validated through dating a man who raped her when she was younger (he didn’t really “mean it.”)
• Soft on Soft by Em Ali
  • Reasoning: just that it’s a poorly written book, so I could even finish it. Fat readers deserve better.
• I Do It With the Lights On by Whitney Way Thore
  • Reasoning: As much as I’m rooting for her, the author subjects herself to restricted eating and a trainer who shames her.
• Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs by Cheryl Peck
  • Reasoning: a poorly written book with little focus; fat readers deserve better.
• This is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare by Gabby Sidibe
  • Reasoning: a whole section on gastric surgery without discussion of the horrible consequences (such as death or zero health improvements), making this surgery seem like an easy option fat people should take to better fit into society.
• Fat Girl by Jessie Carty
  • Reasoning: the speaker of the poem often resorts to body shaming.
• Soft in the Middle by Shelby Eileen
  • Reasoning: a poorly written collection of poems that sound like something a teen would write. Fat readers deserve better.
• Vintage Veronica by Erica S. Perl
  • Reasoning: The fat main character is bully who shames others for their nationality, disabilities, and language. Perhaps this is realistic — fat people can be mean — there are so few books with positive representations of fat people that this felt like a waste.
• Pigs Don’t Fly by Mary Brown
  • Reasoning: the main character is told by one of the novel’s heroes that her mother purposely overfed her because only a pervert would love a fat woman. She had been a strong, capable, fat woman.
• Heavenly Pleasures by Kerry Greenwood
  • Reasoning: As much as I enjoyed the first book in the Corinna Chapman mystery series, Heavenly Pleasures lazily repeated the contents of the Earthly Delights, added too many uninteresting mini mysteries, and wouldn’t shut up about how perfect and handsome Daniel was. DNF, and I removed the rest of the series from my TBR.
• Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
  • Reasoning: main character fat shames herself while her friends tell her she’s not “that” fat.
• Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
  • Reasoning: male-focused fiction in which the main character’s fatness and blackness are erased.
• Fat Bodyguards by Marita Fowler
  • Reasoning: Although I loved the first book, I felt Mexicans and Mexico were stereotyped, and the focus on fatness is decreased.
• They Don’t Make Plus Size Space Suits by Ali Thompson
  • Reasoning: A fat activist wrote a book reiterating all the things fat-phobic people say. What a waste.
• Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee
  • Reasoning: encourages fat- and mental health-shaming and casual violence when angry.
• Fatty Patty by Kathleen Irene Paterka
  • Reasoning: praises woman born a sickly baby for being a thin adult, diet praising, makes clear that thin will lead Patty to accolades, and love means putting down the fork.
• Dangerous Curves Ahead by Sugar Jamison
  • Reasoning: Diet talk, saying “you’re not fat,” objectifying women.
• Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim by Leah Vernon
  • Reasoning: Sooooo full of fat shame; she sounds like fatphobic herself much of the time.
• Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp by Stephanie Klein
  • Reasoning: The author admits this is not a self-acceptance memoir, rather, one that details her adolescence at fat camp when she hated her body. Worth reading, but not under the criteria for my question.
• Once Upon Another Time by Pat Ballard
  • Reasoning: Although there’s lots to like here, the author still has the female protagonist like her body only after she’s time travels to a setting in which buxom women are hot stuff, where she spends a chunk of the novel in a dress that lifts her breasts up into some Western saloon girl cleavage.
• Conversations with the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer
  • Reasoning: A hateful, judgmental main character who thinks life would be better if she were skinny, even if she were miserable. It’s a drag spending time in her head.