Feeling good with our own body is a daily battle. We live in a world of standard behavior: standards of intelligence, quality, and, most of all, beauty. Finding representativeness in movies, TV shows and books characters, mostly in feminine figures, is very important for women to feel better with their own bodies!
Talking about literature, we put together a list of books that have plus size protagonists, for you to notice that there is nothing wrong with you or your body at all! Actually, it is more common than you think, people have different bodies and there is nothing wrong with that! #bodypositive
1. “Eleanor & Park”, Rainbow Rowell
Image Source: St. Martin’s Press
Even if the story is more about the romance between the characters than about Eleanor’s body, it is still an issue for Eleanor. She is a 16-year-old fat girl with curly red hair, freckles and a big smile who meets Park on a school bus on her first day of school. Gradually, they start getting more and more connected through Park’s mix tapes and comic books, sparking a beautiful love story.
2. “Dumplin’”, Julie Murphy
Image Source: HarperCollins Publishers
“Go big or go home”: that’s the sentence on the book’s cover and that’s what it is about! Willowdean, or Dumplin, is an overweight teenager girl very confident about her body, who doesn’t care at all about what people think of her. But that suddenly turns around when she meets Bo, a handsome guy, and starts to be insecure about that relationship. She decides to win the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant to prove herself and be secure again, which is not an easy task for her….
3. “Size 12 is Not Fat”, Meg Cabot
Image Source: HarperCollins Publishers
Heather Wells, a famous teen pop star, is in the worst mood: she caught her boyfriend cheating on her. Everything is upside down on her life: her dad was arrested, her mom ran away with her agent and the worst part is that she lost her job! When Heather starts gaining weight and losing hope, she decides to go to a New York student housing and suddenly finds herself involved in a huge mystery.
4. “The Upside of Unrequited”, Becky Albertalli
Image Source: HarperCollins Publishers
Molly is only 17, but already has a loooot of crushes – 26, to be exact. Her twin sister, Cassie, is always telling her that she can’t just keep having crushes and not making any moves, but Molly can’t deal with the fear of being rejected, since she is too insecure with her body and beauty. However, everything changes when Cassie starts dating and Molly finds herself all alone. Perhaps this is a sign that she should also find a boyfriend? Maybe her 27th crush?
5. “Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls”, Jes Baker
Image Source: Seal Press
A very nice shot if you are looking for self-help books! Jes Baker, a famous militant plus size activist blogger, owner of the TheMilitantBaker website, is the one who wrote this book in a way of “manifesto”. It is a call for people to embrace a body-positive view. In this book you will find opinions, answer to most of the questions that people usually have about it, advices (mostly abut mental-health) and, after all, an advice for people to stop body-shaming and start empowering! Rule number 1: change the world by loving your body!