Weight gain. Two words that are capable of crushing women's egos,
and like wrecking balls looking to strike buildings, these two words also
wreak havoc on how we see ourselves as well as our bodies and the
threads of relationships that tie us to the rest of the humanity. To
become thin, there are women risking anorexia nervosa as well as
bulimia, as well as those who go through degradation and humiliation
just to taste happiness that weight loss can bring.
In WAISTED by Randy Susan
Meyers, Alice and Daphne appear to have it all on the surface: Alice, a
biracial woman, has been blessed with understanding parents, but due
to her relationship with her husband and the way their marriage has
happened, she finds herself feeling insecure when she gains weight
and sees her beloved husband trying to flirt with a co-worker. Daphne
is a talented woman that is good at giving makeovers to her clients,
even taking pro bono jobs. She has a great husband who loves her for
herself as well as wonderful children. However, due to being raised by a
perfectionist OCD mother, she ends up feeling disgusted with herself,
especially when her youngest sister gets married and she is forced to
wear a dress she isn't comfortable wearing.
Trying to escape the cycle of hate they have with their bodies, Alice
and Daphne along with five other women dare to partake in a
documentary titled Waisted. But this documentary isn't what it appears
to be... In particular when what they were promised isn't given, and
instead they are forced to deal with every nightmare imaginable to
women, at one point even risking their lives to continue losing weight.
Does Alice's and Daphne's happiness lie in weight loss, or should they
seek happiness elsewhere?
What I really enjoyed is that this is probably the first time that I read a
book that accurately depicted the relationship overweight people have
with food, as well as histories that impacted them. I could really see
myself in Daphne, even though our lives are different. WAISTED completely focuses on the
situations that lead toward binge eating, and I can tell that its either
something she has experienced or has done a lot of research on.
What I found some issue with were the solutions that Meyers presented
to readers about how to find happiness; they were mostly things that
had been tried in the past but unfortunately didn't stick or made much
of an impact. Which means that the problems were a lot bigger and it
will take everyone to solve them. Nonetheless, for a wonderful and
thought-provoking book that dares to bring up situations that a lot of
us want to keep buried, as well as genuinely questions what we are
doing, then WAISTED by Randy
Susan Meyers should be the right fit.
In this provocative, wildly entertaining, and compelling
novel, seven women enrolled in an extreme weight loss
documentary discover self-love and sisterhood as they enact
a daring revenge against the exploitative
filmmakers.
Alice and Daphne, both successful and
accomplished working mothers, harbor the same secret:
obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their
children, husbands, work—and everything else of importance
in their lives. Scales terrify them.
Daphne, plump in
a family of model-thin women, learned only slimness earns
admiration at her mother\'s knee. Alice, break-up skinny
when she met her husband, risks losing her marriage if she
keeps gaining weight.
The two women meet at Waisted.
Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises
fast, dramatic weight loss, and Alice, Daphne, and five
other women are desperate enough to leave behind their
families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch?
They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world
will see Waisted: The Documentary.
The women
soon discover that the filmmakers have trapped them in a
cruel experiment. With each pound lost, they edge deeper
into obsession and instability...until they decide to take
matters into their own hands.
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