‘Three Fat Singletons is a story of friendship, love, loss and hope. We journey with Jesse, Dotty and Mary through the often hilarious, sometimes painful, obstacle that being overweight can bring to the pursuit of love after thirty.
Mary, Dotty and Jesse are single, obese, and pushing 40; Dotty: a Christian virgin, Mary is a divorced Catholic and Jesse is a man-eating spiritualist. Together they explore the fat-underworld that is Big Ladies Paradise, Talking Hearts, Entertaining London, blind dates, internet dating, phone sex and the possibilities of lifetime celibacy.
A week-long getaway to Greece throws them some unexpected challenges; romance, sex, adultery and horrific embarrassment, all of which lead to the revelation that what you get is what you need, not always what you want… or deserve.’ (Courtesy of Amazon UK.)
When asked whether I’d like to review this novel, I read the synopsis and thought it sounded different, refreshing and honest, so of course I was happy to do so.
Overall I enjoyed this novel and it did offer me, as a reader, something different, refreshing, and honest, just as I’d hoped. We keep hearing about obesity epidemics, but I haven’t personally read a novel which focuses on larger ladies (and we’re talking clinically obese not just a few pounds heavier than they’d like to be), and in particular their experiences of dating.
I particularly enjoyed the novel once the characters were on holiday, there are plenty of love interests in Greece, but are they the kind of men these ladies really need in their lives? It’s certainly complex at times, funny and also thought-provoking too in a gentle way. I felt like a fly on the wall on their holiday and it was an adventure!
I felt I got to know Dotty quite well and could sympathize with her over her constant struggles with willpower and wrong choices (the characters are flawed and they know it, but also very real). My only criticism would be that I would have liked to feel I got to know the other characters better than I did; there was more room for character development, I felt. More internal dialogue in parts would have been welcomed with more reveal of the past. On my copy at least, there was a muddle up in the synopsis description of the characters (Jesse, not Mary, being the divorced one) which led to some unnecessary confusion. I would be happy to get to know the characters more in a follow-up novel and there is definitely scope for this, this isn’t a story with everything tied up at the end (but not in a bad way!).
It didn’t bother me, but the book is very descriptive in parts (bowel movements, vomiting on several occasions) so it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
A book that offers the reader something different.
Thanks to Inkitt for the book in exchange for an honest review.
1 comment:
Great review
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