Andrea Rains Waggener Alternate Beauty

Alternate Beauty

Andrea Rains Waggener

Bantam, Aug 2005, $14.00

ISBN: 0553382985

Over salads that would not feed a mouse, her paper thin mother Audrey informs size 28 Ronnie Tremayne that her obesity is driving the overweight customers away from Luscious Landing Large Women's Clothing Boutique. The owner, her mom's friend Cheryl Land, expects Audrey to lose a lot of weight or lose her store manager's position.

Upset that even her boyfriend Gilbert cannot help her, Ronnie overindulges in an eating binge. That night she dreams of a world where fat is beautiful. When she awakens her fantasy ahs turned out to be true. She is the centerfold of beauty with her near three hundred pound body. Ronnie attends all the galas and men want her. However, as her she finds a lust for life, she eats less. Over time the perfect 28 becomes an imperfect 10, but inside Ronnie detests what has become of her and misses her Gilbert.

This fantasy romance is an insightful look at the American idealization of thinness and demonizing obesity. The storyline is fun to follow as Ronnie finds her role as an ALTERNATE BEAUTY in the new world order not quite as captivating as she thought it would be; instead she learns that what is inside a person is what counts not calories. Though health concerns of someone obese or too underweight are passed over too lightly, fans will cherish Andrea Rains Waggener's intelligently insightful look at the cost to a person's happiness of the constant drumming of the never too thin ideal.

Harriet Klausner