Skinny Me

mom23mangos

I saw this book on today's BookBub email and thought a lot of people here might find it relatable. It's currently free from Amazon, Apple iBooks and Barnes & Noble.

Skinny Me Back Cover Description

Jennifer Carpenter dreams of being a different person – A person with confidence, a person with beauty, a person who weighs a heck of a lot less.

At twenty-seven, her world falls apart. She’s out of work, her mother has died, her estranged brother is in a coma and, despite good qualifications, each and every job interview ends in another rejection. Marked by the teasing, taunts, and fat jokes that defined her childhood, Jennifer blames her current lack of success on her ever-growing waist band.

In need of a change, Jennifer puts her dream of ‘skinny’ above all else. Obsessed with this mission, she devotes her life to becoming the ideal version of herself even if it means becoming alienated from the only people who love her. Determined to lose the weight she believes is ruining her life, Jennifer finds herself in danger of losing so much more.

An Interview with the Author:

Q: How did you come up with the story of Skinny Me?

A: Sitting in my comfy blue reading chair one night, I started wondering how many people perceive others' treatment of them as judgmental or prejudiced when in reality a lot of that attitude comes from the way they present themselves in the world. It must have been what I was reading that made me think of exploring this idea through an overweight person.

I've known many people who are the sweetest, kindest, most appealing people, and others who are somewhat bitter, judgmental and sort of walk around the world just expecting people to be nasty to them. As a defence mechanism (I imagine), they let that negativity show and people see that, which, unfortunately, just promotes their belief that their 'shortcoming' (in Jennifer's case, her weight) is why people treat them badly. In reality, most likely people's negative treatment of them is at least in part because of their attitude.

As a child and young teenager I was quite overweight and I know there was a phase in my life where I let a lot of my own negativity and fear of rejection come out in the way I treated people. I can recall times when I pushed people away or put them down before they could put me down. Jennifer's story is in no way my own but I certainly drew on several painful experiences from my past to lend some truth to her story.

https://www.amazon.com/Skinny-Me-New-Start-Book-ebook/dp/B00N98FTKG