Review: My Mad Fat Diary

My Mad Fat Diary by Rae Earl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being a teenager is hard enough. But when you are bigger than all of your friends, funny but totally in the friend zone with guys and struggling with your parent, life can be tough. My Mad Fat Diary by Rae Earl is a look into the life of a teenage girl who is overweight, struggling with unspecific mental health issues and on top of that dealing what just being a teenager in 1989.

Full disclosure: I have not seen the television show based off of this book (as far as I know, it's not available in the U.S. yet). So as a standalone read, it's a decent look into teenage life. However, it is mostly Earl's original diaries, with a bit of editing to protect identities and it reads as a diary. There are stops and starts, stories unfinished, things that the writer knows but would never write down, etc. I'm sure there are thousands of teen diaries like this all over the world getting yellowed and brittle in a box somewhere. I kept a journal just like this as a teen, though mine is the thoroughly Midwestern version.

What readers should expect coming into this is that it explores nothing and everything at the same time—it's a look at a teen's life, but it's what we all go through. There is the constant worry we are not good enough. There's chasing after boys who won't give you the time of day, or think of you as anything other than a friend. And there's stress and heartache at home and at school. It's life. And it's all relatable, no matter where you grew up.

*Received a copy of this book through NetGalley

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