Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes

by Sue Watson

[Leah]

When I first saw Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes it looked right up my street, sure the title is a little bit dodgy (it’s very twee, isn’t it?) but I liked the synopsis, I liked the bright blue cover so I was thrilled to receive a copy to review on my Kindle. I started reading it almost immediately and, I must admit, it was a well written read, but there was quite a bit about it that drove me mad. I can definitely see the appeal of Watson’s writing, but you can also tell very easily that this is a debut novel, with the requisite amount of cliches and happenings that I truly thought Chick Lit had moved past.

Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes is very well written. Watson’s writing flows nicely and I found myself very caught up in Stella’s life as she finds herself in Rochester producing a religious gardening programme. There’s no hesitancy, the novel just digs right in to the good stuff and, it has to be said, it was amusing to see Stella try and make a live show with a bunch of (there is no other word for it) morons. I also liked the way Stella stood up to her boss, MJ. Now that is what I call amusing. Really, if you’re thinking of reading this book then the scene where Stella confronts MJ and quits her job is stellar. The baking aspect was also thoroughly enjoyable (and by that, I mean the actual baking of the cakes; other parts of the baking aspect I will get to…). At the minute I’m obsessed with watching Cake Boss so a book about cake baking was always going to interest me and I felt the cake part was fulfilled perfectly (even if I was jealous of Stella’s cake-making abilities).

My problems with the novel are far and wide, sadly. Firstly, I hated the way Stella was always angry with her husband, Tom. When she’s in Rochester and she rings up late and wakes up her daughter, she gets angry at Tom, as if it’s his fault. Then she quits her job and Tom tells her that they just can’t afford a party for Grace that will cost upwards of £400 and she gets annoyed and whinges and moans, as if it’s his fault she jacked in her job (and although I understand the circumstances over her quitting, I didn’t like the way she acted). I found her selfish, frankly. It was all her, her, her. She finds something out about Tom and then spends the rest of the book constantly on the verge of tears, but takes her own sweet time confronting him. It just got on my wick. Tom was nowhere near perfect, but Stella was hardly a wronged woman. To top it all off, when her best friend Lizzie does what Tom did, she DIDN’T MIND! I mean, my God. You can’t feel one way about something and then change your mind and be OK with it. It’s hypocritical (which Stella admits), but it doesn’t wash with me. You can’t whinge about your husband doing that to you and then just ACCEPT that your best friend is doing that to another woman. It’s wrong. Wrong.

The characters are very cookie-cutter. There’s Stella, obviously, who never does anything wrong(!), there’s her gay best friend Al, there’s her best friend Lizzie who’s allowed to do bad things, and Stella will be OK with it. None of them really spoke to me and a lot of them were way over the top (Al couldn’t have been more camp if he had tried). They were fine, and somewhat inoffensive, but they weren’t really memorable. I liked Stella’s daughter, Grace (though it grated when Stella called her “Princess Grace”, it’s very OTT) and it’s a shame she was only used when necessary to pep Stella up. I’d have liked to have seen a bit more of her, especially since her parents go through a difficult time. It would have been a prime time to give her something to do and to see how she coped with the events. Instead, she seemingly just gets over it all which was somewhat realistic. I know kids are resilient (it’s been drummed into me by so many Chick Lit novels) but I expected more of a reaction.

Despite enjoying the baking part of the novel, the fact Stella does it out of her kitchen is totally unrealistic. She talks of starting a business and of becoming a cake maker, but she totally lacks the business brain. She seems to think that making cakes out of your kitchen is entirely OK. I’m the least business person out there, but even I know you need permits and you need to have your kitchen checked and for it all to be legal and I just found it a bit stupid Stella – a TV producer, someone who’s clearly not stupid – wasn’t aware of any of that. It does crop up – eventually – but by then, it was just silly. Stella was surprisingly immature and surprisingly naive for a 40-something woman. And that put me off a lot. You can have a book that’s written perfectly, but if you can’t even get your character straight I’m going to be annoyed and Stella was just plain stupid. I just find it so, so hard to believe Stella wouldn’t know that you can’t just start making cakes in your kitchen without the requisite permits and licences and premises. And that’s all I could think about, while I read the book. It was enjoyable, yes it was, and I’ll definitely look out for Sue’s next novel, but I was disappointed with quite a bit of the novel, with the way the characters were and the way the whole cake-baking thing was handled.