In this “big-hearted triumph of a novel” (Carolyn Parkhurst, New York Times bestselling author) for fans of Jennifer Weiner, seven women enrolled in an extreme weight loss documentary discover self-love and sisterhood as they enact a daring revenge against the exploitative filmmakers. Alice and Daphne, both successful and accomplished working mothers, harbor the same secret: obsession with their … secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work–and everything else of importance in their lives.
Daphne, plump in a family of model-thin women, discovered early that only slimness earns admiration. Alice, break-up skinny when she met her husband, risks losing her marriage if she keeps gaining weight.
The two women meet at Waisted. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss, and Alice, Daphne, and five other women are desperate enough to leave behind their families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary.
But the women soon discover that the filmmakers have trapped them in a cruel experiment. With each pound lost, they edge deeper into obsession and instability…until they decide to take matters into their own hands.
Randy Susan Meyers “spins a compelling tale” (Kirkus Reviews) and “delivers a timely examination of body image, family, friendship, and what it means to be a woman in modern society…Culturally inclusive and societally on point, this is a must-read” (Library Journal).
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I have to admit that, at first, I really didn’t care for this book. Maybe it’s because I’ve struggled with my weight most of my life. Maybe it was because I empathized with these women and didn’t like the way they saw themselves and how other people treated them. And then to witness the humiliation and abuse that they went through at the weight loss program—it was just too much.
But I powered on because I love Randy’s stories and I have read them all. I knew she wouldn’t let me down. As the women work through the program and come out the other side—one way or another—it was uplifting to see what strong women who feel good about themselves can accomplish. This should be a life lesson for all of us, don’t you think?
While I’ll have to be honest and say that this is not my favorite book by this author, it is definitely one that all of us should read, if for no other reason than to learn to be more accepting and understanding of those who are different from us. And that you are good enough, just the way you are.
Have a love-hate relationship with food? Body image? So you’re breathing? Read this book.
Meyers perfectly captures every woman’s angst overweight in a fresh and entertainingway. The characters are unlike any you’ve met before and the plot will keep the reader turning pages well into the night. Pardon the pun, but I devoured Waisted in one sitting.
This novel, about the lengths women will go to lose weight, gave me so much to think about in terms of how I think about weight and how I can let it control my life. The idea that a number on a scale can change my mood is ridiculous and yet dead-on. In this novel, Alice and Daphne go to a weight-loss retreat that is a documentary experiment in disguise. They are shamed, put through devastating workouts on little food, and plied with pills. As difficult as it was for me to watch them go through this, I had to think, “Yeah, I might do the same.” Meyers does such a great job capturing the mindset of these women and how society views them. There’s so much more to this novel — how race plays into body expectations; the examples we do or do not provide for our own children; family dynamics — and I’ll be thinking about it for a good long time. I think this is novel looks at some important topics but disguises them in this amazingly readable and engaging novel. I had to see how it would end! This would be an excellent book club novel as there is so much great stuff in here to discuss!
I don’t quite understand the synopsis that called this book “wildly entertaining”. I didn’t find it entertaining. The producers of the show the women signed on for were cruel, manipulative, they body shamed, they took advantage of the womens’ vulnerability, fed them drugs and humiliated them every single time they could.
I gave this 3 stars because this book does explore how people still feel it’s okay to put down people that are overweight in this society. Every other thing that makes people different is off limits but obesity still seems to be fair game for every bully or mean girl out there.
I guess I just don’t get this author or maybe it was just the marketing of this novel. I think it was a poor choice, calling this book highly entertaining.
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for approving my request for an ARC. All thoughts in this review are my own and freely given.
I so enjoyed Waisted. It dives deep into a topic I love—weight, health and eating—but not in a simplistic way. Many books determinedly sound only the one “right” theme: we can and should love and value ourselves at any weight. Waisted does as well, but not without a meaningful consideration of all the other complexities of our self-image: the fact that many of us do want to be thinner and more beautiful, that society rewards us for it and that even if we hate and disdain the lengths we might go to to get there, we are still happy, at least in some ways, if they work. Tough to explore in a novel, but Waisted pulls it off, and is funny and entertaining besides.