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No Fat Chicks
No fat chicks?When Mansy Miratoosi sees that bumper sticker on her brother Mark's car, she's ready to pluck his cocksure tail feathers once and for all.Mandy is a big girl and Mark's mates need to know that lean is not always dream material. Featherweights and bantamweights beware. Mandy is out to prove that big chicks can be winners!If you like Famous For Five Minutes and Fat Chance, you're going to love this one!
- GenresYoung AdultContemporary
129 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1988
2 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Clark
216 books41 followersMargaret Clark was born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia on 20th April 1942.
She has written books under the name M.D.Clark, Margaret D Clark and Lee Striker. Now she writes as Margaret Clark. With over one hundred books about relationships, friendships, and social issues under the guise of humour, Margaret's books have become very popular with young readers. She writes for ages four years to sixteen years. Her first book Pugwall was published in 1987 and subsequently made into a TV series, followed by Pugwall's Summer in 1989.
She has written books under the name M.D.Clark, Margaret D Clark and Lee Striker. Now she writes as Margaret Clark. With over one hundred books about relationships, friendships, and social issues under the guise of humour, Margaret's books have become very popular with young readers. She writes for ages four years to sixteen years. Her first book Pugwall was published in 1987 and subsequently made into a TV series, followed by Pugwall's Summer in 1989.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 22, 2024
There’s the potential for a strong empowering statement somewhere in here but it sort of fizzles out into nothing.
Mandy is a large size fourteen year old girl, who is a whiz at maths and has rock solid self esteem - almost everyone in her life is giving her strife about her size but she isn’t upset by it like most teen girls would be.
Her little sister Babeth (is that a name?) is a beauty queen, but may not enjoy the pageants as much as their mother thinks. Her older brother Markerton (seriously, these names!) is utterly awful and abusive and champions the club that forms the title of the book.
What is any of it about? Nothing. I know it’s weird for a grown man to read YA from the 90s but I love “Hold My Hand Or Else” and just can’t believe what a structureless, themeless trivial waste of time this was. A book about body image and sexism has potential to be great and important, especially in YA but this one didn’t hit the mark at all.
Mandy is a large size fourteen year old girl, who is a whiz at maths and has rock solid self esteem - almost everyone in her life is giving her strife about her size but she isn’t upset by it like most teen girls would be.
Her little sister Babeth (is that a name?) is a beauty queen, but may not enjoy the pageants as much as their mother thinks. Her older brother Markerton (seriously, these names!) is utterly awful and abusive and champions the club that forms the title of the book.
What is any of it about? Nothing. I know it’s weird for a grown man to read YA from the 90s but I love “Hold My Hand Or Else” and just can’t believe what a structureless, themeless trivial waste of time this was. A book about body image and sexism has potential to be great and important, especially in YA but this one didn’t hit the mark at all.
January 22, 2011
teen girls teaming up to fight body fascism! I need to re-read this but it made a big impression on me when I was a pre-teen. The girls deface "NO FAT CHICKS" stickers on the boy's lockers to read "GO, FAT CHICKS", which is a genius idea we all should emulate. Then they get in trouble for defacing school property. this kind of bullshit happens alllllll the time to people in institutional settings (like schools) and margaret clark gives voice to my unending fury. They make their own stickers instead. They do some other cool things as well. genius.
September 16, 2018
They went straight from chapter 7 to chapter 9 real quick. Seriously though, I don’t know about anyone else, but my version of the book does not contain a chapter 8. I think that already gives you a good idea of how this review is going to do.
I picked this book up from the book shop half as a joke, half out of interest. I sort of knew what to expect when I picked it up from the shelf, as I have already read a couple of Clark’s stories when I was younger. However, this one was really rushed. I reckon that she could have written this story quicker than I read it. To me, it seemed like a plot out of some fanfiction, and it was so, so rushed.
The ending, just... ends. There are no resolutions to the problems that occur during the novel; we don’t know what happens with Babeth and her pageants, what occurs between the NFC and NSD clubs, what happens between Mandy and Brad, we don’t know anything at all! It sort of feels like a waste to have read it all and had no established outcome or resolution to anything.
In saying this, Clark wrote this in 1998, which I think is quite progressive, as the empowerment of women and their bodies has only come into the public eye in more recent times. She demonstrates that women are strong, powerful, determined and intelligent, no matter what they look like. I stand by this idea!
‘Clever is Cool’.
I picked this book up from the book shop half as a joke, half out of interest. I sort of knew what to expect when I picked it up from the shelf, as I have already read a couple of Clark’s stories when I was younger. However, this one was really rushed. I reckon that she could have written this story quicker than I read it. To me, it seemed like a plot out of some fanfiction, and it was so, so rushed.
The ending, just... ends. There are no resolutions to the problems that occur during the novel; we don’t know what happens with Babeth and her pageants, what occurs between the NFC and NSD clubs, what happens between Mandy and Brad, we don’t know anything at all! It sort of feels like a waste to have read it all and had no established outcome or resolution to anything.
In saying this, Clark wrote this in 1998, which I think is quite progressive, as the empowerment of women and their bodies has only come into the public eye in more recent times. She demonstrates that women are strong, powerful, determined and intelligent, no matter what they look like. I stand by this idea!
‘Clever is Cool’.
July 13, 2018
This book is a short and sweet read involving a little magic and a young teenage couple just out of high-risk that choose to follow their dreams instead of the pressures of parental expectations. Of course it doesn't hurt that they can do so with the guy having millions of dollars in a trust fund, and a appropriate room mansion...so this book isn't realistic, but a girl can dream!
January 4, 2018
I loved her books as a tween.
December 15, 2015
Margaret Clark does a solid job of exploring the issues facing larger girls in modern Australian society, and even though this book is somewhat old, I'm surprised at how little it's dated.
Mandy, the protagonist, is a shrewd young woman wedged in a tumultuous and passionate 'blended family' but she very much adores her step-siblings (well, 2/3 ain't bad - her brother Mark, is a jerk who deservedly earns her ire).
Told from Mandy's point of view as she struggles with the body shaming issues that rise in her school, it's easy for older readers to get frustrated with the somewhat 1 dimensional adult characters who back up the supporting cast, but younger readers will have no such compunctions.
Mandy's friends are equally fun characters to read, and well explored in the book. The plot is simple - the travails and turmoils of teenaged life at high school - and as Mandy has small wins (a state math competition, triumphs over her brother and his dumb mates) and small, but heartfelt loses (arguments with parents, being sent to her room), she very much encapsulates the timeless qualities of Australian teenagers.
Despite this strong review, the book doesn’t have a clear ending – nor a real climactic peak like a strong narrative might have – but I don’t think that’s the purpose of this book, really. As it takes a snapshot of a young woman’s life in a complex and changing environment, I think it’s easy to understand that the best moments and hardest challenges of Mandy’s life are to come, and at this point it’s a nice little novel that might help other girls learn what Matilda learnt from books – you are not alone. Along with this, however, is the message that young men and women need to learn from books – your troubles are probably not unique and do not make you special, but they do make you you.
Mandy, the protagonist, is a shrewd young woman wedged in a tumultuous and passionate 'blended family' but she very much adores her step-siblings (well, 2/3 ain't bad - her brother Mark, is a jerk who deservedly earns her ire).
Told from Mandy's point of view as she struggles with the body shaming issues that rise in her school, it's easy for older readers to get frustrated with the somewhat 1 dimensional adult characters who back up the supporting cast, but younger readers will have no such compunctions.
Mandy's friends are equally fun characters to read, and well explored in the book. The plot is simple - the travails and turmoils of teenaged life at high school - and as Mandy has small wins (a state math competition, triumphs over her brother and his dumb mates) and small, but heartfelt loses (arguments with parents, being sent to her room), she very much encapsulates the timeless qualities of Australian teenagers.
Despite this strong review, the book doesn’t have a clear ending – nor a real climactic peak like a strong narrative might have – but I don’t think that’s the purpose of this book, really. As it takes a snapshot of a young woman’s life in a complex and changing environment, I think it’s easy to understand that the best moments and hardest challenges of Mandy’s life are to come, and at this point it’s a nice little novel that might help other girls learn what Matilda learnt from books – you are not alone. Along with this, however, is the message that young men and women need to learn from books – your troubles are probably not unique and do not make you special, but they do make you you.
January 18, 2015
This was read as part of my 2015 Aussie Challenge under the genre of Young Adults. Covers the problem of teenagers bullying and being nasty to "fat girls", evidently those of Size 14 or over! Based mainly on one family and the 15yo girl and her best friends, she goes to prove that being "large" does not mean you aren't as good as the next person. Entertaining read.
August 20, 2010
Review; "No Fat Chicks" by Margaret Clark
http://bookywooks.blogspot.com/2010/0...
This book should be the bible for all those young women who are teased, taunted and bullied for being themselves.
http://bookywooks.blogspot.com/2010/0...
This book should be the bible for all those young women who are teased, taunted and bullied for being themselves.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews