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Comeback
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 2, 2017
Cross-posted from my blog where there's more information on where I got my copy and everything.
Hooboy. Here I was thinking I'd be writing a blog post where I was completely unqualified to talk about anything, and the book goes and throws a buttload of fatphobia at me! Thanks, book. I really appreciate that.
The basis of this is okay. Like, a girl in a group home discovering her past, discussing her identity, dealing with some racism from peers, none of those things are bad ideas. Some of them are even handled quite well, if somewhat dated in some attitudes. There is one line that I think today would be seen as much more problematic as it is, and I think part of that might just be regional differences. Honestly, though, most of them aren't terrible (although, considering this book is set in the UK, there's some random racism against Native Americans that is really weird and gross).
But there is so much fatphobia in this one. There's constant comments about how some seven weeks of not training for gymnastics have made Gail "fat as a pig", "fat as a boiled dumpling", a previously fat character's diet being described as having "thinned him so beautifully", non-thin characters constantly being described very rudely like a line about a character having a butt like a badly stuffed pillow. There's dieting described that is borderline disordered, very unhealthy for sure, and starving is literally glorified.
It's just terrible. It's fatphobic, it's loaded with triggering content, and honestly it's pretty disgusting reading about a healthy teen girl starving herself with the approval of the adults in her life. This one is not staying in my house, that is for sure, and I do not recommend it.
Hooboy. Here I was thinking I'd be writing a blog post where I was completely unqualified to talk about anything, and the book goes and throws a buttload of fatphobia at me! Thanks, book. I really appreciate that.
The basis of this is okay. Like, a girl in a group home discovering her past, discussing her identity, dealing with some racism from peers, none of those things are bad ideas. Some of them are even handled quite well, if somewhat dated in some attitudes. There is one line that I think today would be seen as much more problematic as it is, and I think part of that might just be regional differences. Honestly, though, most of them aren't terrible (although, considering this book is set in the UK, there's some random racism against Native Americans that is really weird and gross).
But there is so much fatphobia in this one. There's constant comments about how some seven weeks of not training for gymnastics have made Gail "fat as a pig", "fat as a boiled dumpling", a previously fat character's diet being described as having "thinned him so beautifully", non-thin characters constantly being described very rudely like a line about a character having a butt like a badly stuffed pillow. There's dieting described that is borderline disordered, very unhealthy for sure, and starving is literally glorified.
It's just terrible. It's fatphobic, it's loaded with triggering content, and honestly it's pretty disgusting reading about a healthy teen girl starving herself with the approval of the adults in her life. This one is not staying in my house, that is for sure, and I do not recommend it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review