Every Body Shines: Sixteen Stories About Living Fabulously Fat

Every Body Shines: Sixteen Stories About Living Fabulously Fat, is edited by Cassandra Newbould, with a intro by Aubrey Gordon (from Maintenance Phase!), with short body-positive stories by Nafiza Azad, Chris Baron, Sheena Boekweg, Linda Camacho, Kelly deVos, Alex Gino, Claire Kann, amanda lovelace, Hillary Monahan, Cassandra Newbould, Francina Simone, Rebecca Sky, Monique Gray Smith, Renée Watson, Catherine Adel West and  Jennifer Yen.

Not every story in this collection was for me, but it was a special feeling reading about fat protags and knowing that no one was going to start a good diet or magically lose weight or just feel happy and suddenly change body type or all of the tropes for overweight characters in fiction. All the fat characters just exist in fat bodies, and have major or minor adventures in those bodies. Sometimes they face fatphobia and discrimination, but even then, I knew the conflicts wouldn’t be solved by magically losing weight. It’s a bit like the way I felt reading Queerly Loving — not every story in that collection was for me, but it’s a special feeling reading and knowing these were all queer stories where no one dies tragically.

I loved Aubrey Gordon’s introduction to this collection. I particularly liked Dupatta Diaries, by Nafiza Azad, a story of family, pressure, body image and magic. There are also descriptions of delicious food and beautiful clothes in this one.  Another standout for me was Weightless, by Sheena Boekweg. This is a scifi twist on body acceptance. It made me think of The Cold Equations, well, I mean with less of the extreme drama, but similar themes. Relatable main character, with a wild scifi world, which is always what I like to read.

I was ready for characters to discover that they just love eating celery and cucumber every day, and suddenly get a flat stomach, and then their real life can start. I kept wondering is this when she loses weight? and it slowly dawned on me  that no one was going to diet and lose weight. Also, no character suddenly felt happier in her personal life and then her weight just fell off, literally my least favorite chicklit trope ever. It felt so great to read story after story of fat bodies without the story being about changing that body.  (Even true for the sad stories and the stories that weren’t really for me.)

This collection shows wildly different characters and different genres. The main thing that ties them together is simply that all the protagonists are fat and none of the protagonists go on a diet to start their real life.