The Cupcake Queen Book

You know, life's too short, and when I don't like a book in chapter two I'm really probably just not going to like it. I tried to power through after getting offended in the first chapter (more on that soon) but when the tale of parental separation and move to a small town sounded so cliched I could have just filled in all the blanks for Hepler, I put this one down.

Hey, so, writers? I am many things: loudmouth and opinionated and really into musical theatre and also: I am whatever you want to call it, fat or plus-size or chubby or curvy or whatever your favorite euphemism is. I shop at Torrid, OK? I'm not saying this to excuse or explain or to make you grossed out or to garner your sympathy or for you to say something like "but laaaaaaaaames you are so cute anyway!" because, whatever.

But here is the thing: I know what it is like to live in a society where the ideal is something much smaller. I know what it's like to already be a lady in a culture that already doesn't want me to take up any space, and here I am taking more than my supposedly allotted share.

So, writers. If you want to pepper your books with wacky and supposed-to-be-funny hijinx where those goofy fat people are so fat and aren't they fat and hi ho ho ho so fat and they just have noooo idea how fat they are and of COURSE they'd lean against something causing everything to fly through the air because har har har so fat!

Look: we know. I know I tiptoe around not drawing attention to my size. I certainly don't go literally throwing myself around causing pastries to rain down on events. And I don't think I'm some lone exception who's figured out how to, you know, be a normal person. People are normal people, regardless of how thin or fat they are. So let's just not do this anymore, OK? Let's be better, especially when we write for kids. Let's not make people be jerks or jesters or anything so one-dimensional based on appearance. People are so much more than that, and I think we should be too.