Big Girl

I found this book insulting to my intelligence. The author has over 50 books under her belt, and I am shocked that she thought that this book passed muster at all. Granted, bestselling authors can become lazy after a while because they figure their readers will buy anything they write, but this book was just... gah.

Ms. Steel writes from a very passive perspective, as if she is a person who is orally telling Victoria's story to another person. Such passive storytelling can work in prologues to stories (to set up the background and so on) or for certain story shifts to provide history at intervals. However, the WHOLE story is told in this perspective, which just confused me. I ended up just skimming through this book, and by the end, I show more was just disgusted.

Not once does Victoria stand up to her parents. Even after therapy and realizing that she is a loveable person and that her parents are jerks, she never ever calls them out on their crap. The ONLY thing that could have redeemed this book AT ALL was Victoria having a big throwdown with her parents and coming out a victor - after such a lackluster and frustrating story, a huge payoff was sorely needed. The ending just sputtered out and left me hugely unsatisfied.

I've read a couple of other Steel books, which were pretty lackluster, but nowhere near as bad as this. Her other books were pretty repetitive, but mild compared to this. It seems as if the author was challenging herself to figure out how many times she could repeat one thing in sentence variations.

Dad is a narcissistic jerk who plays blatant favoritism with his daughters, Mom is an enabling doormat who also plays favorites, both of them just can't love Victoria because she doesn't live up to their shallow standards, Gracie is so pretty and beautiful and delicate and special, and Victoria constantly struggles with her weight (as well as self esteem because Mom and Dad are huge jerks) and can't stay away from ice cream and feels to be unlovable. The book repeats these things over and over and over.

And over and over and over and over and over and over and over... show less

Why on earth I'm reading this is beyond me. I hate Danielle Steel. I read my first DS ("The Accident") in sixth grade. And at that point, it was probably appropriate, reading-level -wise (though perhaps not in terms of subject matter). I think I read one more after that before I caught on to the formula and abandoned her in disgust.

At any rate, I found this at a rummage sale for a quarter. I'm half done with the book and feel I over-paid. The writing is crap. The characters are one dimensional. Her mother is a Stepford wife. Her dad is cruel. Her sister is beautiful. But fear not! In spite of being "fat" (more on this in a sec!), Victoria, our protagonist, is perfect in every way. She loves her sister. She has a fabulous job, a show more fabulous apartment, and fabulous friends. She is without fault.

You know, except for the fact that she is FAT. And DS won't let you forget it, either. Literally every page, there is some reference to how skinny and perfect her family is and how hideously fat Victoria is. Her parents mock her at every gathering. Her students speak of her weight behind her back. People look and point.

So how large is this behemouth? Brace yourself!

A 14. (A 12 when she loses 10 lbs.)

Now, as a size 14 myself, perhaps I'm biased. I'm under no illusions that I'm thin, and I am well aware that I could stand to lose 25 pounds. Few people have self-esteem as shitty as mine. Few are as insecure about the size of their ass. And yet I really don't think that I'm SOOO large that people whisper about my size behind my back. Perhaps I am in denial, perhaps I just live in a more generous part of the country (South Dakota), but I still find this incredibly far-fetched.

And yet....I continue to read. It's like a horrible, horrible train wreck. I just can't look away.

EDIT: I've finished this. It did not get better. If anything, it got worse. After two nights of reading about how fat even a size 10 is, I was left wanting to slit my wrists. I don't think I've ever felt so fat as a result of reading a book.

The ending itself was truly awful. There's a "crisis/betrayal" that she devotes about 4 pages to before she entirely glosses over it. Why she bothered with this "plot twist" at all is beyond me.

Please, please save yourself a day or two of your life. Even for DS, this is a truly awful book. I didn't even donate it to GoodWill; it went straight to the trash. I don't want to take the chance of passing it on to another unsuspecting reader. If I could give it less than 1 star, I would. show less

I listened to this book on Audio CD. I liked the main character however I found the reality of the situations in the book to be very Danielle Steel. The girl is 15 pounds overweight in High School (GASP!) and 25 pounds overweight as an adult (DOUBLE GASP!). Her being "extremely overweight" has caused all sorts of pain in her life. I just found it to be somewhat of a smack in the face to any person that has been overweight that such a small amount of weight would ruin this poor girls life. It was pretty much what I expected from a Danielle Steel novel though. I hadn't read one since middle school and this is why.

I have not read many Danielle Steel books - just a few, the most memorable being Palomino, back when I was a teen. However, I liked the sound of this book when I read the dust jacket blurb. I liked the protagonist, Victoria, very much. I rather identified with her in some ways (the weight struggle, large chest, etc) . . . but I found her parents insufferable. I wanted to them to change, to realize the errors in their ways (they always remind Victoria that she is the weird one in their family, that they don't love her nearly as much as her little sister.) It's all because of her weight, her nose, her "brains" and so on. They are horribly shallow and mean people. In a way, however, I am glad that her parents don't change, because that show more would probably highly unrealistic if they did. show less

Victoria Dawson can't help but feel out of place in her family, especially living in a city as glamorous and body-conscious as Los Angeles. Her father, Jim, is tall and slender, and Victoria's mother, Christina, is a fine-boned, dark-haired beauty. By comparison, Victoria was a chubby little girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, and rather ordinary looks. Needless to say, both her parents were intensely critical, outspoken, and noticeably disappointed by their daughter's ordinary appearance.

When Victoria was six years old, she saw a picture of Queen Victoria, and her father told her that she looked just like her. After the birth of Victoria's perfect little sister Grace, her father liked to refer to his firstborn as "our little tester show more cake". With the birth of Gracie, everyone agreed that Jim and Christina definitely did something right.

As hard as she tries, Victoria just can't seem to win the battle against her weight: as a young adult, she is still overly plump, and has an awful sweet tooth. While her parents and sister can eat anything they want and not gain an ounce, Victoria must watch everything she eats. She quietly endures her father's belittling comments about her body and watches her various academic achievements go unacknowledged by her family. Ice cream and oversized helpings of all the wrong foods may give Victoria some comfort, but only for a few moments.

The only thing Victoria knows is that she must get away from home, and so, after going to college in Chicago, she moves to New York City. Landing her dream job as a high school teacher, Victoria feels like she has finally found her niche: she absolutely loves working with her students and continues to wage a determined war on her weight at the gym. When Grace announces her engagement to a man who is an exact replica of their father, Victoria worries about her sister's future happiness. However, with no man of her own, Victoria can't help but feel like she is a failure once again.

Returning home to attend Grace's wedding, Victoria finds that not much has changed in her absence. Despite the continued tension with her parents, Victoria and Grace have always been close; and although the sisters could not look more different, they love each other unconditionally. Yet regardless of Victoria's many accomplishments, her parents attitudes toward her still haven't changed: they know just what to say to bring her down. She will always be her father's "big girl," and her mother's constant disapproval is equally as unkind.

Victoria has spent a lifetime trying to forget the numerous little occasions of thoughtlessness and cruelty - the various incidents of hurt and neglect perpetrated on her by her parents. But she has finally reached the point of no return; the point where even ice cream can no longer dull the pain. As the wedding draws near, a chance encounter, a deeply upsetting betrayal, and a family confrontation all lead to an unavoidable turning point for Victoria. She faces a tough challenge as she goes ahead in her life, as well as a difficult personal risk: to accept herself as she is, celebrate it, and eventually to claim the victories she has fought so hard for and deserves.

To be perfectly honest, this story was a little bit of a let down for me. I found it to be slightly repetitive and somewhat disappointing, although it was still a fairly enjoyable story - certainly Danielle Steel's typical writing style. This was fast-paced and easy reading for me, but overall it wasn't her most riveting storyline. I had to give this book a B+! show less

My audio debut, and what easier way to start with a good old Danielle Steel.
The story apppealed to me, more than anything as I have had weight issues all my life, and I sort of bonded with Victoria and really wanted to know the ending soooh soon.
It was OK, as DS goes, as I'm no fan, but the prose was a bit too syrupy for me.

One of Danielle Steele's best. To warn anyone who hasn't read her before she does write common fiction. It's not intended to be complex or difficult. It is about a girl named Victoria who has always been ridiculed and made to feel inferior by her narcissistic parents because she is not thin and beautiful like them. Instead they focus all of their attention on her younger sister Grace. The novel is about her quest to find a positive self-image apart from her parents world-view. It is a really great book that focuses on how difficult it can be to have emotionally abusive parents. However, I will admit that when I finished the book I was hoping to know more about what happened to the characters. Hopefully, she'll write a sequel.