How To Lose Weight And Alienate People

by Ollie Quain

[Leah]

Ollie Quain's debut novel How To Lose Weight and Alienate People promises me a lot of things, the gist of which is that the novel is going to turn the Chick Lit genre on its head in the same way Helen Fielding did with Bridget Jones (I am one of the only people in the world offended by that statement as I hated Bridget Jones and all that she stood for). It promises to be hilarious and thought-provoking and while I can't really agree with the former, it very much is the latter - although for me, it's thought-provoking for all the wrong reasons. It's almost like a Marmite novel - you're either going to lap it up and agree with everything Quain writes, or you're going to dislike it and not quite 'get' it. Sadly, I didn't quite 'get' it.

How To Lose Weight and Alienate People is all about skinny people. It is, I will be honest. And that doesn't bother me at all - I would much rather read about somebody who is happy to admit they're skinny than someone who says they're fat when they're not and who tries to lose weight even though they're already gaunt. That's what really, really irritates me in the world of Chick Lit. In Chick Lit novels, losing weight is the easiest thing in the world, and let me tell you - when you have a sweet tooth like mine, losing weight is the hardest thing in the world. And I'll give it to How To Lose Weight and Alienate People, Quain got it right. Staying skinny isn't as simple as it looks or as it's made out to be; staying at any weight is difficult, depending on how much you like your food (I would literally KILL to be that person who hates chocolate, or anything sweet). I give plenty of kudos to Quain because Vivian's journey was hard, it was tough, and it took a long, long time before she really saw her true self. Her back story is awful, when its revealed. Something I could relate to - though I was never treated as Vivian was, but I could feel and relate to her shame.

What I didn't get about the novel was the rest of it. Vivian's quite a really awful person. Which becomes clear pretty early on, after a promising start - I thought it was kind of sweet that Vivian learns her actor lines on the loo, but it was all downhill from there and Vivian is very much an anti-heroine. She's not warm and fuzzy, she doesn't fall in love, and she rarely eats (which I'm sure attributes to her stinking mood half the time). What really got me, though, was the way she treated her very lovely Aussie boyfriend Luke. He didn't do a THING wrong - he left her sweet love notes (how many men do that? Exactly! NONE OF THEM), he knew her quirks and foibles and knew that the only way to get her attention was via love notes else she would freak out, and he was just generally a really lovely top-line bloke. I thought he was wonderful, but Vivian just pushed, and pushed, and pushed, until she pushed him too far and he left. It didn't even seem to bother Vivian as much, yes, she had her moments, but I never really felt like she cared, which (to be fair) was very true to her person.

There was a very bizarre sub-plot featuring Vivian and an actor called Maximillian Fry (why nobody called him Max, I will never know - Maximillian, I tell you). It was a two-fold plot featuring the fantastically Hollywood faux relationship, and then there was a bit of a mystery tacked on towards the end. I wish more time had been spent on the mystery, on building it up, instead of shoe-horning it in way too late when I had, sadly, lost most of my interest. I went into How To Lose Weight and Alienate People expecting a read that would blow me away - I was prepared! I was willing! And while Vivian's narrative was at times amusing - I snorted once or twice, it wasn't laugh out loud funny, it was more acerbic and sarcastic humour, that probably won't sit well with everybody, but managed to make me snort on occassion. (I'm almost 90% sure there's an evil Vivian lurking inside me somewhere.) I didn't hate the book, but nor did I love it. I find myself sitting on the fence, wishing I had loved it more, but resolutely admitting that I am stubborn (like Vivian) and must tell the truth about how I felt.

This review was originally posted on Girls Love To Read