Big Girl: A Novel
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- ISBN13: 9780385343183
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In this heartfelt and sharp new novel, Danielle Steel celebrates the virtues of unconventional beauty while exploring deeply resonant issues of weight, self-image, sisterhood, and family tree.
A rotund small girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has permanently felt out of place in her family tree, especially in body-conscious L.A. Her father, Jim, is tall and slender, and her mother, Christina, is a fine-boned, dark-haired beauty. Both are self-centered, candid, and disappointed by their daughter’s looks. When Victoria is six, she sees a photograph of Queen Victoria, and her father has permanently said she looks just like her. After the birth of Victoria’s perfect younger sister, Gracie, her father liked to refer to his firstborn as “our tester cake.” With Gracie, everyone agreed that Jim and Christina got it right.
While her parents and sister can eat anything and not gain an ounce, Victoria must watch everything she eats, as well as suffer her father’s belittling comments about her body and see her literary achievements go unacknowledged. Ice cream and oversized helpings of all the incorrect foods give her comfort, but only briefly. The one thing she knows is that she has to get away from home, and after college in Chicago, she moves to New York City.
Landing her dream job as a high school teacher, Victoria likes effective with her students and wages war on her weight at the gym. Despite tension with her parents, Victoria remains close to her sister. And though they couldn’t be more different in looks, they like each additional unconditionally. But regardless of her accomplishments, Victoria’s parents know just what to say to bring her down. She will permanently be her father’s “huge girl,” and her mother’s constant disapproval is equally unkind.
When Grace announces her engagement to a man who is an exact replica of their narcissistic father, Victoria worries about her sister’s future happiness, and with no man of her own, she feels like a failure once again. As the wedding draws near, a chance encounter, an act of stunning treachery, and a family tree confrontation lead to a turning point.
Behind Victoria is a lifetime of hurt and neglect she has tried to forget, and even ice cream can no longer dull the pain. Yet to be is a challenge and a risk: to accept herself as she is, celebrate it, and aver the victories she has fought so hard for and deserves. Huge girl or not, she is terrific and discovers that herself.
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This is one of the best Danielle Steel books I have read over the past few years. I cannot place this book down; this is a page turner.
Danielle Steel’s tale is about an overweight girl, Victoria Dawson, and her emotionally/verbally abusive parents regarding her weight. Even after Victoria moves to New York and starts a teaching job at a private school, she still has issues with her weight. The issues does get resolved as the book goes on, and the reader will find Victoria’s tale (along with a therapist, Dr. Watson) encouraging and uplifting. Danielle Steel does an brilliant job with self-image, and esteem in this book. I can tell to the tale in this book, because I was overweight most of my life, until I took the weight off for excellent a few years ago.
Thank you Danielle Steel for this fantastic book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The message in Danielle Steel’s latest novel is a serious and vital one.
All children need to be loved. But, there are children who experience the feeling of being unloved by their parents, at times even resulting in thinking they are unworthy of being loved at all. Either because they are not goodlooking enough, clever enough – or just do not fit into their parents’ vision of a successful person.
Victoria Dawson’s parents are slim, dark-haired and conventionally gorgeous people. They are also narrow-minded and opinionated. Their first-borned child Victoria is a large baby, with huge ble eyes, a pretty wholesome face and honest hair. Or as her father Jim puts it, a huge girl. She is a huge disppointment to especially her father, who calls her their “tester cake”, in order to check the recipe before finally getting it right.
At seven, Victoria’s sister Grace is born. Dark, slim and brown-eyed, she is a reflection of her parents and immediately becomes their pride and joy. But in spite of their parents’ inclination for their youngest child, the two sisters like each additional dearly and throughout their childhood Grace is the only person in Victoria’s life by whom she feels unconditionally loved.
Victoria is constantly ridiculed by her narcissistic father and silently by her mother Christine, who has been “trained” into total agreement with her spouse all through her marriage. They don’t only agree but openly tell Victoria about her failings: She is too stout, she is not pretty enough (to attract a man…), she is too intellectual (men do not like that…). And when she reveals her dream of apt a teacher, her father immediately disapproves – teaching is no real job, there is no money in teaching, come join his world of publicity…
But Victoria is a strong girl, bent on building a future for herself. After attending an eastern college, she goes to New York and starts a whole new life as far away from her parents as possible. It’s not simple. For years she fights a constant battle with her weight problems. Attending weight watching programs, gyms – losing a few pounds until falling back into comfort eating, especially after a visit home to her family tree in Los Angeles.
In spite of the pleased ending, there are lots of afterthoughts still lingering in the air as the book ends. About people, children and adults, hiding behind invisible walls of feeling unworthy and unlovable because of downright cruel behaviour of their parents/the people closest to them.
Fortunately, most children are loved, but for the exceptions growing up can place scars hard to overcome.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I establish this book to be an extremely accurate portrayal of the emotional abuse that shallow and narcisstic parents can heap on a child. In real life, the parents usually don’t get the error of their ways, and there is regularly not a pleased ending where everything works out just fine. I admired the main character, Victoria, for recognizing at such a young age – 18 – that her family tree is toxic, through no fault of her own, and for getting the hell out of town. And yes, she was not really a huge girl, just a size 14 or 16, but to many, that is sinful! I grew up in a family tree that prized physical beauty and petiteness over brains and personality, and trust me, this book is an accurate tale! The right heroine is Victoria, who triumphs over her dysfunctional family tree, leaving them behind to fester in their own shortsightedness and misery. Yes, the tales of the emotional abuse are repetitive, which is how it happens in real life. I had been getting tired of the usual DS formula, and establish this one refreshing on many levels. Its well worth the read.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I was kind of excited to read Huge Girl since I have quit reading her novels because they were permanently the same storyline or predictable and when I saw she had a new novel coming out with a different type normal heroine I figured to give her a try.
I was very disappointed on how she kept referring to Victoria as a huge girl and hideous. I mean its obvious the leader hasnt had a huge girl as a friend or ever talked to one in her life. Because as a replacement for of Victoria being the strong willed girl around her parents as she grew up and finally take a step up and tell her parents how incorrect they were to treat her like the hideous duckling and they never loved her as a replacement for she was still acting the shy timid girl up till the end. Sure she got her man but I felt she could of elaborated more as a replacement for of adage they rode off into the sunset.
This book fell fleeting in many ways but I am sorry I sound like I am blabbering but it just angered me how plus size girl were projected in this book and saddens me that into todays society the discriminations of size still gets thrown into todays books.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Huge Girl is a very simple read and it is in Danielle Steel’s particular style You will like the main character and despise her parents before you end the first 30 pages and you will be rooting for her from the start. if you are a Danielle Steel fan, this is a must read. If you are not a fan…read it anyway!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5