Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado
i really enjoyed reading fat chance, charlie vega. i loved no filter and other lies, maldonado’s second book, and am excited to read more of her books.
charlie vega (she/her) is a fat puerto rican teen living in connecticut–my least favorite state–and trying to love herself. she knows she shouldn’t care about her weight, but it’s difficult to shake all the fatphobic crap society throws at us, plus charlie’s mom is a previously fat, now thin white woman who wasn’t happy with her body when she was fat and has made charlie feel bad about fat bodies her whole life. charlie’s dad died several years ago and without him to be the bridge between charlie and her mom, their relationship feels more strangled. as readers, we can see that charlie and her mom are grieving in different ways, and there were some parts of the book where i had sympathy for charlie’s mom but wow, she’s wrong a lot. she doesn’t listen to charlie, she takes over charlie’s birthday party, she finds different ways to tell charlie to lose weight (including flat out telling her to), she says rude things when charlie tells her about the boys she likes. i appreciated that while charlie and her mom talk a few times throughout the book, their relationship isn’t perfectly smooth by the time the book ends. i like books that let teens know they don’t have to forgive the shitty things the adults in their lives do.
there’s also a lot of focus on friendship in this book, with charlie and her best friend amelia (she/her) getting into some arguments and having awkward moments. there’s a scene after they’ve talked where they acknowledge that things still feel awkward. more things i’m glad teens can read about–second chances and the reality of having tough conversations.
there was a line that bothered me because it felt acephobic/exclusionary: “i can’t even imagine having sex with someone. (i mean, i’m no prude, of course i can imagine it…)” (page 37). let’s stop with the “of course i can imagine having sex with someone and if you’re not you’re a prude” crap please?
overall, a great read. fat chance, charlie vega is available for purchase on bookshop.
cws: death of parent (occurs before book starts; mentioned); emotional abuse; fatphobia; grief
id: a hardcover copy of fat chance, charlie vega with a green notebook and three paintbrushes of different sizes on top of a piece of scrapbook paper with swirled pinks and oranges
official book description:
Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.
People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.
But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her?
Because it’s time people did.
A sensitive, funny, and painfully honest coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.