By the age of eighteen, Clara finds herself a single mother to two sets of twins. With her own mother absent from early childhood and the death of her father in her late teens, food becomes Clara’s crutch. Several decades on, Clara has a new partner and a fifth child. She oozes love and pride towards her flawless family, despite the fact that she is now thirty-four stone and housebound.
An unusual turn of events presents Clara with the ability to step out of her own body and, stumbling upon a problem within her 'perfect' family, Clara sets off in search of a solution. Far from finding answers, however, Clara encounters complications which question all she has ever believed to be true about her children, their partners and her man.
Thrust into the world outside her cosy home, Clara becomes confused to the point where she is barely able to distinguish truth from the perceived fantasy that is slowly becoming a reality…
Weight is ALWAYS an issue, always something people think about, and I loved how it was presented here. Wouldn't everyone like to step out of their own skin every once in a while and step into someone else's, or something better? I know I would. I would LOVE a skinny person to jump out of me the way Starla does Clara. Although while it all sounds perfectly rosy, the Waterfall family are hiding A LOT of secrets and I didn't envy Clara learning ANY of them, because literally every single one of her family members was lying or hiding something. I mean that in the nicest way possible, but every member of the Waterfall family are hiding a secret and most are super obvious to any usual Chick Lit reader, the only reason the author was possibly able to get away with it is the simple fact of Clara being housebound, otherwise you would just suspect she's the most obtuse mother ever. Secret after secret tumbled out, and most were fairly obvious, but it was still a joy to read.
I very much enjoyed the book. It didn't blow me away (nothing is these days, so there's not a lot new there) but it was enjoyable and it was nice to see the world through Clara's eyes. We judge fat people very harshly, maybe that's correct; maybe not, but seeing Clara's perspective gave me a new perspective. Once you get on that slippery slope it's hard to recover. It was so nice to meet the Waterfall family, they were such an interesting bunch but they definitely loved each other deep down and I love meeting families like theirs.
