Fat Girl on a Plane
Kelly deVos
Harlequin Teen, 2018
384 pages
Trigger warnings: sex, fat-shaming
About the Author: A third generation native Arizonan, Kelly deVos can tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about cactus, cattle and climate. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. Kelly is represented by Kathleen Rushall of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Her debut novel, Fat Girl on a Plane, was published on June 5, 2018 by Harlequin Teen and her work has been featured in Normal Noise and 202 Magazine. Kelly is also a passionate advocate for body positivity and fat acceptance.
“Fashion is art, and I’m not just talking about the Chado Ralph Rucci exhibit locked up at the Met. It’s one of the few kinds of art that everybody gets to participate in. Fashion turns each of us into our own museum.
We curate ourselves at the closet door each morning. And for some people, that’s the only creative decision they ever get to make. It’s a pair of khakis and a T-shirt, but to the guy who picks them, it’s an exhibition. Of style.“
Cookie is an aspiring fashion designer dedicated to creating plus-size fashion lines for the world. She takes pride in creating her own clothes that make her feel confident because she is a badass plus-size woman herself. Life seems to keep getting in the way of her dream though. The kicker is when she is deemed too fat to fly to interview one of her fashion idols. She’ll have buy another ticket or she isn’t getting on the airplane. Life, people, and the world around Cookie can’t accept her so she changes. She works hard, and she gets skinny in a little over a year. Not all of her journey is healthy or reasonable, but when you spend your whole childhood and young adulthood constantly not at home inside your own skin and other people can’t stop sticking their dumb faces into your business, what’s a girl to do? Skinny Cookie has just as many problems though. Cookie keeps trudging along determined to prove the plus-size lines are desperately lacking considering that there are a majority of women being left out of the fashion industry because of their size.
Devos has built a strong female lead who will do whatever it takes to achieve her dreams and authentically shows the struggles of a young girl becoming a woman who suffers many issues despite what size she is, fat or skinny. Dive into Cookie’s world to be shown some of the topics today that are being shoved onto the back burner. There is no “perfect size.” Women and men have bodies and shouldn’t be made to feel like they don’t have control over their own space that they inhabit. You are important. You are under no obligation to look pretty or skinny. Fat doesn’t mean unhealthy. Devos is an aspiring author and I hope she continues to write about such important issues as that of body positivity.
PRR Writer, Julia Shelton
