For his debut installment, hes tacklingSkinny Bitch,a vegan manifesto masquerading as a weight-loss manual.
The year is 2005.
Our great country has been beset by calamities.
John Paul Brammer
The Iraq War is in full swing under President George W. Bush.
Hurricane Katrina has devastated much of the Gulf Coast.
I did not have friends and we lived on a ranch.
The diet books of the time reflect this.
In 2005, the aspirational woman was fun, flirty, fashionable, and, above all,skinny.
She was also unabashedly mean.
ButSkinny Bitchis not a television show.
And, make no mistake, itwantsto be.
This book all but accuses fat people of being the Taliban.
Weirdly, though, it doesnt say that upfront.
Aside from vegan cookies and vegan pizza, the wordveganis not uttered as an identity until chapter six.
For all its bluster,Skinny Bitchis on a covert mission.
The end goal is not mere veganism, though.
This book is selling theDark Soulsof veganism.
In other words, this aint your quirky white lady with dreadlocks and a hobo bag style of veganism.
Yes, the path to Skinny Bitchhood is arduous and will require many sacrifices.
it warns on the very first page.
You cannot keep eating the same shit and expect to get skinny.
A mere few pages in, intrepid readers will already have been called dumb, lazy pigs.
Junk food has a shelf life of 22 years and will probably outlive your fat, sorry ass.
Speaking of prose,Skinny Bitchis a fan of equal signs.
Unhealthy = fat, it says, on page one.
And then, later, Milk = fat.
People who think these products can be low fat or fat free = fucking morons.
Is there anything of value to be gleaned here, 18 years later?
(My goodness,Skinny Bitchis eligible to vote.)
EvaluatingSkinny Bitchon scientific terms would be something of a wash. Its not chiefly a scientific book.
Like many diet books, it is more of a philosophical text concerned with aesthetics.
Its about achieving a specific look and accessing an attendant personality.
If youre a thin woman, the book telegraphs, youre in an elite club.
It is a karmic reward for suffering.
They lack discipline, and so they deserve contempt.
The road is tough, and youll need tough love to survive it.
Thats where we come in.
Can I condone a book that contains so many instances of targeted brutality on fat people?
No, of course not.
At best, I can commend it for internal consistency and adding plenty of pizazz to the vitriol.
Thats why my least favorite thing about this book is that it completely undoes itself at the end.
The bitches, who have spent several pages denouncing sugar, go saccharine.
There is nothing uglier than a pretty woman whos nasty.
To this I say: No.
Like a cheap protein bar, this ending note left a bad taste in my mouth.
Admitting that you were just using fat-shaming as a means to an end sucks.
I thought that, at the very least, there was some commitment to ideological consistency here.
Have you listened to anything youve been saying throughout your own book up until now?
Certainly, the demand for thinnessis still around, but such norms are not about health.
enjoy a nice tiramisu, or whatever it is nasty, lumpy freaks like you enjoy.
See you next time, bitches.
