35 out of 35 people found this review helpful.
Reality Shows- Are You Sick of Them Yet?
Date of Review: Aug 12, 2005
The Bottom Line: Excellent debut from writer Johanna Edwards.
All my life I'd been waiting for things: calls that never came, guys who never showed, invitations that got "lost in the mail." But mostly, I'd been waiting to be thin. I wanted a thin body so badly I could visualize it, like a beacon in the distance. I spent a lot of time preparing for my "thin life."
Katrina or Kat to her friends seriously believes that her life will not begin until she drops her weight and becomes "perfectly thin." If she is thin, she can then reveal herself to online love Nick (who doesn't know that her size 4 claim is more like a size 14) and finally shop at regular stores without having to worry about fitting into their largest sizes. When Kat lands a spot on a reality series about 6 women trying to lose weight, she finds that life in a fishbowl isn't as fun as she thought it would be. The producers get Nick to fly in and he dumps her on tv for being untruthful about her weight. Kat becomes the most hated woman on realty tv and she quickly realizes that being thin isn't the cure for everything troubling her.
I was so surprised that I related to this character and her neurosis about her weight. So many women hold on to the though that life would be perfect if their own body was perfect and the character of Kat embodies this irrational thinking. Kat refuses to acknowledge that her low self-esteem and her inability to be honest with her boyfriend are the real issues that she needs to deal with and that being thinner won't make any of these problems go away.
The reality show aspect of this novel is amazing because Edwards captures all the tension and bickering that can potentially happen when 6 women are locked in a house with little food and little self worth. Kat's comic relief makes this part of the book bearable, and her interaction with the other cast mates is both sarcastic and hilarious.
A team of supporting characters make The Next Big Thing an enjoyable read. The Kat's cast mates include a self-indulgent wannabe star named Alicia, handsome and caring show host Jagger, and a tough talking producer who tries to keep the show marketable and human all at the same time. Edwards writing is easy to read, her insight into the inner feelings of a self described "fat girl" are realistic; at times Kat is touchingly poignant and other times you will want to strangle her. Yes, it's that deep.
if I had to complain about one thing it would have to be the forced romance between Kat and Jagger. Why couldn't Kat have a happy life by herself, thin or not? Not every women's contemporary fiction novel has to have the heroine fall in love with the perfect guy. I wanted to ask the author, just what is so wrong with being single? Still, Kat is a plucky heroine and I liked the fact that she moved on not perfectly thin but perfectly happy.
?2005
Tiffy0380
