Gut-busting Laughs

First, just take a look at the book cover. The lady is chilling on a floating device in all her ample proportioned glory. That is all.


In her latest collection of essays, Celia Rivenbark tells it like it is, with her trademark funny southern snark. I've read a couple of her other works (Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank: A Slightly Tarnished Southern Belle's Words of Wisdom and Belle Weather: Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Scattered Hissy Fits). It is my opinion that You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl is the funniest. Her southern sass and snark had me holding my stomach chuckling. Gut-busting laughs, I tell you!


Without spoiling the content, she writes about everything from bomb-in-underwear terrorists to adopting a really big kid to mall food courts where "you can eat at 75 places within 50 feet, then collapse into a chair and rock your fat ass right into sleepy land." And these essay topics are just the first four chapters! I do think the placement of essays could have been better. The really funny ones are in the beginning, then it seemed to taper off. Nevertheless, I seriously haven't laughed this hard out loud from a book in a while. I warn you will get the side-eye and questions of "What are you reading?" if read in public.


The chapters are about 8-10 pages in length allowing for an enjoyable quick read. Whether you are skinny or fat, the essays will have you nodding in agreement. Celia Rivenbark is a humorist, so her pop-culture humor may go over some readers' heads. For instance, she refers to her daughter as "Princess" and her husband as "Duh." She mentions reality television shows like The Real Housewives of New Jersey. But that's what Google is for, right? Pick this book up and enjoy it as much as I did. Or comment on this post to be entered into a GIVEAWAY.


Disclosure: 80% of the time spent reading this book was eating a southern style pecan pie. How's that for a fat girl?


Title: You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool
Author: Celia Rivenbark
Published: August 2011
Pages: 242
Edition: ARC
Rating: ♥♥♥♥