First off, Happy Halloween!!
Halloween is my favorite holiday. It tends to start what is referred to as "eating season." Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner (and OMG leftovers), Christmas dinners, Hanukah Latkes, holiday parties and drinking at New Year's. Weight Watchers (WW) meetings are as desolate as Shirley Jackson's Hill House. (And just as creepy.) Weight Watchers loves this time of year, not that they are getting much business but they are guilting new and returning customers to return to WW in January to refill their coffers.
This Halloween, I will have chocolate. This Thanksgiving I will have my Turkey dinner. I will eat anthing I darned well please at holiday parties. I will continue to exercise, I will continue to eat normally (perhaps a little more than usual at social occassions) between festivities, and in January I will not return to Weight Watchers. I will continue to exercise and eat as healthy as possible as I do every day of the year, and I won't beat myself up for it.
What does this have to do with vampires? Bad vampires are none other but fad diets created by the diet industry. They suck not our blood but 60 Billion dollars from Americans' pockets by promising us false hopes of a thinner better life.
Better vampires appear in Lynne Murray's Falstaff Vampire Files. Murray always has fat main characters in her novels no matter what the genre (mystery, supernatural, romance). Although I am not a big fan of the vampire genre as it seems everything is a rip off of Angel, Blade, and the most icky Twilight. I find the drama overly emo. I like Buffy/Angel for the humor included but I am also a fan of the classic vampire, Dracula. Murray's book pays homage to Dracula (including naming her her characters, Mina, Lucy and Van Helsing) and also with humor of the main vampire character: fat and charming John "Jack" Falstaff (yes, based on Shakespeare's Falstaff). She also pokes at the emo vampire genre with three people so desparate to become vampires that they call upon the "Others", mysterious life stealing formless vampires who seek only to kill. Unlike Falstaff and his friends who feed and leave their victims alive. The book is narrated through a series of notes, and recorded messages (similar to the Dracula novel) both giving insight to the characters and moves the story along.
So if you are looking for a good supernatural read with many fat main characters, check out this book.
And if you want to read something even more scary, check out this story of a woman purposely gaining weight to qualify for weight loss surgery. The lady Stephany Sears has the same height as me and originally weighed about 35lbs less than I do. She's at the lower end of "the BMI obese" scale and part of a clinical trial to see if lower weight fatties should qualify for the surgery. I'm less scared for her (I really hope she doesn't have the major side effects, or additonal surgeries, or death) than I am that the surgery will become a normal standard for weight loss for people of every sizes.
Again Happy Halloween. Do not fear the candy bucket!
That sounds great! I'd love some books with fat characters. Thanks for the recommendation.
Posted by: Anna | November 03, 2011 at 07:50 PM
Hm. Sorry to spam, but I'm just reading that article.
She weighs the same as I do. She talks about how weighing 60 pounds less is like "winning the ottery" and "getting a second chance." And, man, I do NOT get it.
the whole thing makes me super uncomfortable, but I'm glad I read it.
Posted by: Anna | November 03, 2011 at 07:54 PM