Looking for a story about someone’s life that may reflect your own? These memoirs by fat authors will resonate with readers who have experienced bullying, internalized fatphobia, and what it’s like to develop self-love that turns into a fight for body positivity and plus size lives everywhere. Some authors are known fat activists, like Lindy West and Roxane Gay. Some are known for other reasons, like acting in famous television shows, but the stories we’ve shared here involve their bodies. Funny, heartbreaking, smart, and familiar—these memoirs will resonate.
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a “gorgeous, gutting…generous” (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon’s experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
2018 | View on Amazon
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
Sometimes you just have to laugh, even when life is a dumpster fire. With We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., “bitches gotta eat” blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette—she’s “35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something”—detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes, sharing awkward sexual encounters, or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms—hang in there for the Costco loot—she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.
2017 | View on Amazon
Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing by Jennifer Weiner
Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an “unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter, and a sister, a clumsy yogini, and a reality-TV devotee. In this “unflinching look at her own experiences” (Entertainment Weekly), Jennifer fashions tales of modern-day womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Nora Ephron and Tina Fey. No subject is off-limits in these intimate and honest essays: sex, weight, envy, money, her mother’s coming out of the closet, her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to hearing her six-year-old daughter say the F word—fat—for the first time, Jen dives into the heart of female experience, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.
2016 | View on Amazon
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
2017 | View on Amazon
So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know by Retta
In So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know, Parks and Recreation star Retta takes us on her not-so-meteoric rise from roaches to riches (well, rich enough that she can buy $15,000 designer handbags yet scared enough to know she’s always a heartbeat away from ramen with American cheese). Throwing her hardworking Liberian parents through a loop, Retta abandons her plan to attend med school after graduating Duke University to move to Hollywood to star in her own sitcom – like her comedy heroes Lucille Ball and Roseanne. Say what? Word. Turns out Retta might actually be on to something. After winning Comedy Central’s stand-up competition, she should be ready for prime time – but a fear of success derails her biggest dream.
2018 | View on Amazon
Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love, & Fashion edited by Virgie Tovar
In this fun, fresh, fat-positive anthology, fat activist and sex educator Virgie Tovar brings together voices from an often-marginalized community to talk about and celebrate their lives. Hot & Heavy rejects the idea that being thin is best, instead embracing the many fabulous aspects of being fat – building fat-positive spaces, putting together fat-friendly wardrobes, turning society’s rules into personal politics, and creating supportive, inclusive communities. Writers, activists, performers, and poets – including April Flores, Alysia Angel, Charlotte Cooper, Jessica Judd, Emily Anderson, Genne Murphy, and Tigress Osborn – cover everything from fat go-go dancing to queer dating to urban gardening in their essays, exploring their experiences with the word fat, pinpointing particular moments that have impacted the way they think and feel about their bodies, and telling the story of how they each became fat revolutionaries.
2012 | View on Amazon
Am I Ugly?: One Woman’s Journey to Body Positivity by Michelle Elman
In today’s world of supplements, celebrity diets and social media, it’s very easy to be hard on ourselves about the way we look. With all this pressure to strive for ‘perfection’ aesthetically, it is easy to forget how damaging this can be psychologically. Michelle Elman is a leading part of the body positivity movement that has been gathering momentum to liberate people from these unrealistic standards, recognise that all bodies are equally valuable and broaden the billboard definitions of beauty. Am I Ugly? is this inspiring woman’s compelling and deeply personal memoir that describes her childhood experiences of life-threatening health problems, long stays in hospital and fifteen complex surgeries that left her scarred, both mentally and physically. The narrative follows Michelle’s journey from illness to health, and from childhood to adulthood as she deals with her body-confidence issues to embrace both her scars and her body – and help others to do the same. This remarkable book grapples with the wider implications of Michelle’s experiences and the complex interplay between beauty and illness.
2018 | View on Amazon
Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life by Kelsey Miller
At twenty-nine, Kelsey Miller had done it all: crash diets, healthy diets, and nutritionist-prescribed “eating plans,” which are diets that you pay more money for. She’d been fighting her un-thin body since early childhood, and after a lifetime of failure, finally hit bottom. No diet could transform her body or her life. There was no shortcut to skinny salvation. She’d dug herself into this hole, and now it was time to climb out of it. With the help of an Intuitive Eating coach and fitness professionals, she learned how to eat based on her body’s instincts and exercise sustainably, without obsessing over calories burned and thighs gapped. But, with each thrilling step toward a healthy future, she had to contend with the painful truths of her past.
2016 | View on Amazon
This Is Me: Loving the Person You Are Today by Chrissy Metz
When This Is Us debuted in fall 2016, a divided America embraced a show that celebrates human connection. The critically acclaimed series became America’s most watched—and most talked about—network show, even building on its fan base in the drama’s second season. As Kate Pearson, Chrissy Metz presents a character that has never been seen on television, yet viewers see themselves in her, no matter what they look like or where they come from. Considered a role model just for being her authentic self, Chrissy found herself on magazine covers and talk shows, walking red carpets, and as the subject of endless conversations on social media “I don’t know what you’ve been through to play her,” she is often told by fans, “but it was something.” In This is Me, Chrissy Metz shares her story with a raw honesty that will leave readers both surprised but also inspired. Infused with the same authenticity she brings to her starring role, Chrissy’s This is Me is so much more than your standard Hollywood memoir or collection of personal essays. She embraces the spirit of Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes, and shares how she has applied the lessons she learned from both setbacks and successes. A born entertainer, Chrissy finds light in even her darkest moments, and leaves the reader feeling they are spending time with a friend who gets it.
2018 | View on Amazon
I Do It With the Lights On: And 10 More Discoveries on the Road to a Blissfully Shame-Free Life by Whitney Way Thore
Whitney Way Thore stands five feet two inches tall and weighs well over three hundred pounds, and she is totally, completely, and truly . . . happy. But she wasn’t always the vivacious, confident woman you see on TV. Growing up as a dancer, Whitney felt the pressure to be thin, a desire that grew into an obsession as she got older. From developing an eating disorder as a teenager, to extreme weight gain in college, to her ongoing struggle with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), Whitney reveals her fight to overcome the darkest moments in her life. She holds nothing back, opening up about the depths of her depression as well as her resilience in the face of constant harassment and mistreatment. Now Whitney is on top of the world and taking no BS (Body Shame, of course). And she’s sharing the steps she took to get there and the powerful message behind her successful No Body Shame campaign. She even reveals her favorite “F” word (it’s probably not what you think), the thrill of doing it with the lights on, and the story behind the “Fat Girl Dancing” video that started it all.
2016 | View on Amazon
My Mad Fat Diary by Rae Earl
It’s 1989 and Rae Earl is a fat, boy-mad 17-year-old girl, living in Stamford, Lincolnshire with her mum and their deaf white cat in a council house with a mint green bathroom and a refrigerator Rae can’t keep away from. She’s also just been released from a psychiatric ward. My Mad Fat Diary is the hilarious, harrowing and touching real-life diary Rae kept during that fateful year and the basis of the hit British television series of the same name now coming to HULU. Surrounded by people like her constantly dieting mum, her beautiful frenemy Bethany, her mates from the private school up the road (called “Haddock”, “Battered Sausage” and “Fig”) and the handsome, unattainable boys Rae pines after (who sometimes end up with Bethany…), My Mad Fat Diary is the story of an overweight young woman just hoping to be loved at a time when slim pop singers ruled the charts. Rae’s chronicle of her world will strike a chord with anyone who’s ever been a confused, lonely teenager clashing with her parents, sometimes overeating, hating her body, always taking herself VERY seriously, never knowing how positively brilliant she is and keeping a diary to record it all. My Mad Fat Diary – 365 days with one of the wisest and funniest girls in England.
2016 | View on Amazon
Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass by Jes Baker
In Landwhale, Jes Baker delves into her coming-of-age—including her 6 Ways to Hate Your Body (#2: Worship teen periodicals), her top tactics for reframing the malicious animal comparisons hurled at fat women repeatedly (see “Elephant: Everyone knows elephants are basically the coolest animals ever. Try again.”) and as a bonus, Jes takes the time to answer the Internet’s most pressing question of all time: “So, have you ever thought about dieting?” For anyone who grew up as a fat kid (or didn’t for that matter), who has traveled while fat, or who has simply lived in a fat body, Landwhale is a truthful and powerful account of the unforgiving ways our culture treats fatness and how to live happily and freely anyway.
2018 | View on Amazon
Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin: Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons
Brittany Gibbons has been a plus size her whole life. But instead of hiding herself in the shadows of thinner women, Brittany became a wildly popular blogger and national spokesmodel—known for stripping on stage at TedX and standing in Times Square in a bikini on national television, and making skinny people everywhere uncomfortable. Talking honestly about size and body image on her popular blog, brittanyherself.com, she has ignited a national conversation. Now in her first book, she shares hilarious and painfully true stories about her life as a weird overweight girl growing up in rural Ohio, struggling with dating and relationships, giving the middle finger to dieting, finding love with a man smaller than her, accidentally having three kids, and figuring out the secret to loving her curves and becoming a nationally recognized body image advocate. And there’s sex, lots of it!
2015 | View on Amazon
Shadow on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat Oppression by Lisa Schoenfielder and Barb Wieser
With a foreword by Vivian Mayer. SHADOW ON A TIGHTROPE is a collection of articles, personal stories, and poems by fat women, about their lives and the fat- hating society in which they live. Topics include: exposing the myths concerning fat; what it’s like to grow up fat; a description of the medical crimes committed against fat women; stories of the daily hassles, verbal and physical harassment in the lives of fat women; inaccessibility to clothing, jobs, and public places for exercise and sports; effects on the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual selves of fat women living in a society that hates them, and how they have learned to survive. This anthology also collects material previously distributed separately by Fat Liberator Publications, plus many new writings solicited over the past two years from women all around the country.
1983 | View on Amazon
No Way! Okay, Fine: A Memoir of Pop Culture, Feminism and Feelings by Brodie Lancaster
From the small town in regional Australia where she was told that ‘girls can’t play the drums’ to New York City and back again, Brodie has spent her life searching screens, books, music and magazines for bodies like hers, girls who loved each other, and women who didn’t follow the silent instructions to shrink or hide that they’ve received since literal birth. This is the story of life as a young woman through the lenses of feminism and pop culture. Brodie’s story will make you re-evaluate the power of pop culture in our lives – and maybe you will laugh and cry along the way.
2017 | View on Amazon
Meaty by Samantha Irby
Irby laughs her way through tragicomic mishaps, neuroses, and taboos as she struggles through adulthood: chin hairs, depression, bad sex, failed relationships, masturbation, taco feasts, inflammatory bowel disease and more. Updated with her favorite Instagramable, couch-friendly recipes, this much-beloved romp is treat for anyone in dire need of Irby’s infamous, scathing wit and poignant candor.
2013 | View on Amazon
This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare by Gabourey Sidibi
In This Is Just My Face, Gabourey Sidibe—the “gives-zero-effs queen of Hollywood AND perceptive best friend in your head” (Lena Dunham)—paints her unconventional rise to fame with full-throttle honesty. Sidibe tells engrossing, inspiring stories about her Bed-Stuy/Harlem/Senegalese family life with a polygamous father and a gifted mother who supports her two children by singing in the subway, her first job as a phone sex “talker,” and her Oscar-nominated role in Lee Daniels’s Precious. Sidibe’s memoir hits hard with self-knowing dispatches on friendship, celebrity, weight, haters, fashion, race, and depression (“Sidibe’s heartfelt exploration of insecurity . . . makes us love her” —O Magazine). Irreverent, hilarious, and untraditional, This Is Just My Face will resonate with anyone who has ever felt different, and with anyone who has ever felt inspired to make a dream come true.
2018 | View on Amazon
Wake Up, I’m Fat! by Camryn Manheim
Camryn Manheim, Emmy Award-winning costar of The Practice, chronicles her journey from a self-hating, “overweight” teenager, who desperately wanted to fit in, to a self-loving, fat activist who is proud to be a misfit. Wake Up, I’m Fat! shares her intelligent, candid, poignant, and often hilarious stories of being fat in a society obsessed with being thin. Camryn takes us from her days as a motorcycle-riding hippie in Santa Cruz to her enrollment at New York University’s prestigious school of drama–where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner broke the unspoken theater rules of size by casting her in the role of the ingenue–and finally to Hollywood, where she dispelled the fallacy that large women can’t be portrayed as sensual, sophisticated, and confident.
2000 | View on Amazon