Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

e-Audio, 11:04:32
Narrated by: Carla Vega
Release Date: February 2, 2021
Published by: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Read from: February 6-10, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Library
TW: Parental abuse (Verbal) & Fatphobia
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary, Body Positivity, Romance, Sparkly Covers, Diverse Authors, POC MC, POC on Cover, Coming of Age, YA

  Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.
Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.
     Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.
     People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.
     But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.
     A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

*MY THOUGHTS*

I almost put this at the bottom of my TBR because I couldn’t find it anywhere. Even when I was trying to buy it for work I couldn’t find it. But finally it came up on Overdrive and I knew I had to grab it. I’d heard so many great things about it and I knew I needed it. And now that I’ve read it, I know I was absolutely right.

Charlie Vega has it all. She has the best friend of all best friends, she’s funny, she’s ambitious, and she’s fat. Unfortunately, some people have a problem with the fat part of her. Including the person who should be most in her corner: her mother. She tries to let that hurt go, but there’s always a constant reminder that she’s not the “perfect” daughter. But her best friend is always there for her….. Until she’s not. Charlie learns something about her best friend and her new love interest that she wished she never found out. Can they survive this? Both her and the guy and her and her bff? Or should she just throw it all away?

I started out with a different rating for this book. But once I started writing my review, I saw some things I missed while reading it. Like, I try not to read the synopsis before I read the book (or at least not the entire thing) because I don’t want any spoilers. So with this one, I remember adding it to my TBR just because I liked the cover. And then reviews on it started pouring it and I needed to get my hands on it. I never had time to glance at the synopsis. And now, I’m glad I didn’t. I would have been extremely angry that it literally told the biggest issue they face. Like why would they put that in there? I probably would have only flipped through it if I read that first. I would have felt like I knew everything already.

But as I’m sure you’ve heard before, it’s not always the part in the story, but the journey the character took to end up there. And of course, that is true. Although you know what happens, you don’t know how they got there. Normally that doesn’t work for me because I hate spoilers of any kind, but this one did since I didn’t read them. I got to enjoy experiencing things with very real reactions and I didn’t harbor any pre-conceived feelings of any characters before hand. To me it just makes for a more genuine reading experience. And Crystal Maldonado was able to give me that. Her writing style sucked me in and I remember I was thinking I couldn’t stuff it into my ears fast enough.

Now Charlie, I really loved her. Yes she could be dramatic at times, but I did feel she was an accurate representation of a teen. You can’t tell me 16/17 year old girls aren’t dramatic, I used to be one lol I also had some issues that mirrored hers as well, so even as an adult, I did relate to her. This book made me feel like I used to back in the day. As far as the other characters, there were many of them that I didn’t care for. That one guy at the beginning was a jackass and that other person was cruel for hurting her like that. And Lawd, don’t get me started on her mother. The only people I actually liked were the significant others!

The ending itself was what I had a problem with. I just didn’t understand how she could see the ok in one person in that whole mess, but not the other. [SPOILER] Who really had nothing to do with that whole situation. It wasn’t like it was while they were together. [END SPOILER] I just don’t see how that made any sense at all. And then there was the ending. It didn’t feel completely wrapped up. I think I would have preferred it more had it SHOWN Charlie making the necessary steps to love her body and who she is vs just being told. And by her best friend who’s also a kid. I mean come on, she ended up getting the simplier version from an adult. I just didn’t understand it.

The romance itself was hella cute tho. I loved that they were both so shy, but also both so excited to be together. But the conflict between them…. I got it, but I didn’t. She should have been mad at both of them, not just one. I thought it weakened her “argument.” And the fact that everyone but her saw it, just confirmed my thinking.

After so many positive reviews, I knew this one was going to be a hit. And it so was! A Puerto Rican, fat lead love interest that talked about real issues?! YES. PLEASE. I’ll take a hundred more like this one. This coming of age story had a lot going on, but in the best way. Definitely one to pick up if you are looking for a cute but serious contemporary romance.

Overall, I give this