A review by nytephoenyx
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

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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