Miguel M. Morales

Tiff Joshua Tj Ferentini

Bruce Owens Grimm

"An anthology of writing from fat and queer authors, celebrating what it means to exist across these intersections"--

An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives

Fat and Queer

Jelke Lenaerts

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This book has content warnings for fatphobia, queerphobia, transphobia, suicide attempts, self-harm, rape, sexual harassement, abusive relationships, eating disorders and drug use. 

I didn't really like this anthology. The idea of it was really interesting and to be honest, it does discuss a lot important topics and has a lot of great lessons. However, I feel like a lot of the stories in this anthology had the same progression. Almost all the stories had the same take away and, honestly, this whole thing just felt very repetetive. I feel like some essays could have been really great but the impact of them were lessened because the previous essays talked about the exact same ideas/lessons/problems.

Ariel Himboi

I want to start off by saying that I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to read an anthology that represents me so well as a fat and queer person. I want to say that I very much looked forward to reading something that could piece together both my sexuality and gender questioning and hopefully my feelings about my body too. 

Second, I whole heartedly understand most of the struggles that a lot of the authors experience and experienced through poetry, fiction, essays and other short formats. I do not voice my own experience for people of color but I do understand the struggles of weight and queer expression. 

While I loved most of the poetry in this anthology, and often the short fictional stories, I started to feel weighed down by the essays and the writing that was borderline an educational class. While this could be helpful for others as I would have on a level, I found that some of the facts were overtaking a personal experience that I would have liked to see on page. History is important but what I was looking for was something more personal. 

The reason I give this three stars is because I've decided to DNF it at 75% around 260 pages in. I would have loved to finish this, and I should have, but right now I'm looking for something specific regarding my reading taste, and the constant facts and history and how I was ripped from the feeling of comfort and resonation bothered me too much and I could not help but skim most of the last entries. 

Unfortunately, this could be something to look over later in my life or to give someone else, but sadly I don't find it to my taste right now. While it is an important book for a lot of people to read, it just wasn't the right time. 

I think this will help a lot of people so if this speaks to you... pick it up.

Fat and Queer An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives

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