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Published May 2015
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The diet revolution is here. And it's armed.
Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you're fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls' magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin.
Then, when a mysterious woman starts following her, Plum finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into an underground community of women who live life on their own terms. There Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with her past, her doubts, and the real costs of becoming "beautiful." At the same time, a dangerous guerrilla group called "Jennifer" begins to terrorize a world that mistreats women, and as Plum grapples with her personal struggles, she becomes entangled in a sinister plot. The consequences are explosive.
Dietland is a bold, original, and funny debut novel that takes on the beauty industry, gender inequality, and our weight loss obsession - from the inside out, and with fists flying.
"Starred Review. Hilarious, surreal, and bracingly original...a genuinely subversive novel that's also serious fun...Part Fight Club, part feminist manifesto, an offbeat and genre-bending novel that aims high - and delivers." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Ideal for readers seeking something more socially aware and gender-conscious in their women's fiction; book groups will find lots to discuss." - Library Journal
"Through her protagonist, debut novelist Walker gives a plaintive yet powerful voice to anyone who has struggled with body image, feelings of marginalization, and sexual manipulation. Her robust satire also vibrantly redefines what it means to be a woman in contemporary society." - Booklist
"Sarai Walker has written a call to arms. Devious, subversive, delightful, Dietland is a SCUM Manifesto set to a pop music beat and Plum Kettle is a feminist hero for the modern age." - Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
"Keenly intelligent, daring, and original, Dietland has something important to say to us all." - Alice Mattison, author of When We Argued All Night and The Book Borrower
"At first you'll think you're reading a familiar story: a woman who works at a women's magazine tries to lose weight. And then POW! Dietland lithely moves in ways and to places you won't expect. Sarai Walker has a wonderfully curious mind, and this is an impressive, ambitious first novel." - Gabrielle Zevin, bestselling author of The Storied Life of AJ Fikry
"Dietland is a book I have been waiting for someone to write all my life, and it hit me hard right where I live, right where so many of us have wasted too much time living. It's courageous, compassionate, intelligent, pissed off and much more fun than it has any right to be. " - Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted
"Sarai Walker is an immensely talented writer and her debut novel, Dietland - filled with wit, wisdom and wonder - is a pleasure." - Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life
This information about Dietland was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sarai Walker received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Bennington College. As a magazine writer, her articles appeared in national publications, including Seventeen and Mademoiselle. She subsequently served as an editor and writer for Our Bodies, Ourselves, before moving to London and Paris to complete a Ph.D. She currently lives in the New York City area. Dietland is her first novel.
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