Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

11 reviews

speterson47's review against another edition

4.0

Charlie isn't afraid to accept that she is fat, but she doesn't think her mom ever will. Charlie is in high school, dealing with the typical stresses of classes, working part-time, and finding a date to the dance. When her dad was still alive, she felt like things were a lot easier. After he died things changed, especially between her and her mom.

Her best friend Amelia is loved by everyone, but Charlie says she doesn't mind sharing her with her other friends and wonderful family. Can Charlie get over their differences to maintain their life-long friendship?

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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

I didn't love it like I was hoping to which meant it took me a longer time to finish it than I had hoped, but it was still enjoyable enough. I loved all the representation that was included in the book and I liked the ending.
I would've liked to see more conversations between Charlie and Amelia and Charlie and her mom about the issues Charlie had with them and the issues she had with herself because of what she perceived of them. It seemed like Charlie would just have to suffer the constant low-key emotional abuse from her mom and no one was going to do anything about it.
The characters themselves- some I really liked some I had mixed feelings on. Loved Charlie's cousins. When she said how they would kind of make fun of her for not knowing Spanish reminded me of my cousins making fun of me for not knowing Indonesian. Would've liked to see how Charlie interact with her mom's side of the family though! I overall liked Charlie but there were so many moments in the book where I got annoyed or frustrated with her and rolled my eyes at the things she said/did. Same goes for Amelia but to a lesser extent since she wasn't the main character/focus. Brian was def the most consistently liked main/minor character for me although there were times I was like "he's TOO sweet/perfect/understanding" and i would've liked if Charlie could've gotten out of her own head and realized that he probs gets a lot of her body insecurities because he's chubby/fat too. But she's a teen and I remember when I was a teen and wrapped up in my insecurities. I think I'm just getting old haha

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nytephoenyx's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really struggled with this one.

First of all, I want you to know that I have a lot of respect for Crystal Maldonato and her craft in writing this book. She did an excellent job portraying realistic friendships and complicated high school romances. The myriad of family dynamics is fantastic and the variety of representation is lovely to see. As a book, I think Fat Chance, Charlie Vega was fantastically done. Nothing about the writing or the quality of the story made me want to set it aside.

I really struggled personally with the content.

It’s absolutely wonderful that Maldonato has portrayed a plus-sized brown woman and that she has been honest with the pressure and internalized self-hate a society like ours can inspire. Charlie fights the fatphobia around her so hard, but she also carries some of it herself. She confronts it, but it’s not as easy as saying “I’m not going to feel that way anymore“ and Maldonato hasn’t sugarcoated that. It was hard to read, but I think necessary. Many other books would have made embracing self-love seem like a simple task, and it isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s important it was written like this so others who feel like Charlie can see they aren’t alone.

As an adult who still struggles with this, it was difficult for me to see the weight of the emotion and the toxic environment surrounding Charlie. It was heartbreaking to see her go on with life, knowing things weren’t okay but feeling powerless. It’s hard, and it hurts. I had to set the book down for a week to give myself an emotional break. When I came back, reading it became even more difficult. The external and internal pressure bubbled. There were moments when I was so happy for Charlie because she achieved something she wanted and found joy in it. Then to see her crushed time and again? This is not a happy book overall. It’s a little too real sometimes.

It’s important, so important for a book to exist with this kind of experience. I can’t emphasize that enough. There are a lot of hard things in life that folks make seems simple, make seem easy to just “get over“. Life isn’t like that, not really, not for many people. I appreciated the story so, so much. But it hit a little too close to home in a lot of ways, and I struggled to finish it. Charlie‘s pain was a little too heavy for me.

That said, I did finish it because I was hoping for a happy ending. I live for happy endings. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega doesn’t have a picture perfect ending, but it is happier than the rest of the book. Without giving too much away, some open communication goes a long way and things sort of fix themselves, at least for now. Real life isn’t like that, not as pretty, not as easy. But the conversations that are had needed to be had, and Charlie is lucky to have people around her who love her so much.

Overall, it’s a great book. It hit a lot of my personal issues and so I don’t know that I would reread it because of the emotional roller coaster it was for me, but for other people I think this is a wonderful recommendation. It was really nice to see the representation and to read a story that felt like it wasn’t trying to dance around the difficult topics.

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brokenbodybitch's review

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4.75

Ouchie her relationship with her mom hurted

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bookcrushin's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

loved this, and really wish I had a book like this when I was a teen, the fat awareness, and fatphobia was so on point - brought me back to being a teen and having those same feelings.

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karcitis's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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aly_young's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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michaelion's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

she's just like me... 🥰❤

The only real problem with this book is the sheer amount of current pop culture references. Like, yes it's contemporary, but this book is amazing, wonderful, great, damn near perfect, beautiful, stellar, insert more synonyms here!!! And if not for the pop culture references, I think this book could've been a timeless classic instead of just a modern one.

I wasn't just in the mind of a fat brown teenage girl, I was me again. (Except, I'm black.) Me, just a few years ago. Me, right now. Me, feeling something more than the buzzword representation. I wanna hold this book to my chest and tattoo the letters on to my heart. I want my nonexistent kids to read this book and know they are worthy, they are beautiful, they are loved, and here's the reasonable, sometimes realistically frustrating, sweet book that will show them that, if they didn't know it already.

What a lovely book to start with as my introduction back into reading! 🥰

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bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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caribbeangirlreading's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Review – Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

“They say you can’t really be with someone until you can love yourself, but I’m learning that it can also sometimes take the admiration and support of someone else to help you get there. I was already on the path to seeing my own self-worth, but . . . took my hand and made the route less lonely.”

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega is a charming and heartfelt coming-of-age tale about a brown, plus-sized Puerto Rican girl growing up in Connecticut. The book tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

LIKED

*Cast of characters – I really liked Charlie, Amelia, and Brian. Teenaged me would have totally been friends with them.

*Charlie got her HEA!

*Cover – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

DISLIKED

*Way too much telling when showing would have been more than enough. Young (and not so young readers) are smarter than that.

*Themes were presented but not properly (or superficially) explored, specifically Charlie’s relationship with her mom and Charlie’s latinidad.

*The author wanted so badly to make Charlie a woke brown girl that she was THIS CLOSE to preachiness.

IT’S COMPLICATED

*Narration – I loved that the book was narrated from a first person pov by Charlie. You truly got to feel her joy, her pain, her insecurities. Unfortunately, too many times Charlie would be in the middle of doing/being, the book would stop cold, and Charlie would become the third-person narrator. It made for clunky reading.

*Making Charlie's mom (the only Anglo/white character in the story) the "bad guy” was lazy writing on the part of the author. Making Charlie's mom a skinny, white-passing Latina would have made for a much more complex and nuanced story.

This book was lovely. I love today’s young readers get to see themselves reflected in the pages of a book. But I also think that young readers reading diverse stories deserve better writing and editing, not just woke stories.

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