Big Girl
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Elison offers a troubling yet hopeful vision of the future.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“A strikingly powerful story of one woman’s physical and emotional resourcefulness under the most dire of circumstances. An apocalyptic page-turner that picks up where Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale left off.”
—Jackie Hatton, Tor.com
“I could talk about female empowerment, body positivity, and gender flexibility. But those terms are wholly inadequate for Meg Elison’s clear-eyed satire in the guise of fantasy and science fiction. Powered by rage, incandescent with a deep understanding of injustice, angry for all the right reasons, yet still essentially optimistic, these are the stories I need to keep me warm through the long dark night. Compelling and fierce and unstoppable.”
—Pat Murphy, World Fantasy Award winner
“Meg Elison’s stories will raise blisters on your conscience. Her politics are smart, her prose is like a razor, and her characters will break your heart. Read at your own risk.”
—Annalee Newitz, author of Autonomous
“Meg Elison’s work is visceral and compelling. A voice that doesn’t so much demand attention as it 100 percent deserves every ounce of it.”
—Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Hugo-winning writer and editor
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Philip K. Dick Award winner Elison (The Book of Flora) refracts fatphobia through a dystopian lens in this powerful but repetitive collection of stories and essays about body image. The unflinchingly brutal "Such People in It," which offers a glimpse into a future poverty-ridden and fundamentalist America in which human bodies and relationships are under strictly regimented control, and the poignant "The Pill," about the complicated relationship between a weight loss obsessed mother and her daughter, are both original to this collection. The impact of "The Pill" is lessened slightly by the personal essay "Guts," which comes later in the collection and retreads the same material from a nonfictional perspective. Weaker entries show notably less polish: the biting satire of the title story is delivered with far too heavy a hand, and though the magical realist "El Hug " ends with a bang, it spends too little time getting there. Rounding out the collection is "Sprawling into the Unknown," a whimsical and informative interview with Elison about her life and writing process. Elison's devoted readers and anyone with a love of Atwoodian dystopias should take note.