The F Word
Liza Palmer
Available: April 25, 2017
Thank you to NetGalley.com for the opportunity to read an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
I was all excited for this book – I thought it was a novel about swearing. As I read through the tale, I quickly realized that the F word wasn’t my go-to adjective, but rather the other dreaded F word – Fat. It sounds like Olivia was rather large at some point (but I think she still suffers from some body dysmorphia and needs to talk to someone about that) and it still consumes her life. Every thing she does is so perfectly measured.; she is counting emotions as calories.
What I loved: What I wouldn’t do to have more scenes with Ben’s girls. Not only are the two youngest completely adorable as written, but his older daughter sounds like she was raised remarkably well and I’m always looking for parenting tips. An entire book on his backstory (2 failed marriages, lots of strong women in his life) would be an interesting read.
What I didn’t love: Olivia wasn’t the easiest character to bond with so I found myself not really caring about her. Its tough to realize that at a climatic breaking point in the story, all I was thinking about was “Ew… she’s sitting naked on the shower floor in the gym.” Everything else in that whole scene was wasted on me as I was doomed to think if you could get athlete’s foot on your lady parts. Jockette itch anyone?
What I learned: Olivia’s probably more like me that I’d want to realize.
Overall Grade: B

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As a standalone book I would have given this three stars, but it loses a star for not being a true sequel to Conversations with a Fat Girl. While this book is clearly about the Olivia Morten featured in Palmer's previous book, it seems to take place in an alternate universe. Conversations with a Fat Girl ends with Maggie, Olivia's best friend, revealing Olivia's past weight problems during a slide show at the rehearsal dinner. This very defining event is never mentioned in this book, it appears that Olivia's husband does not know that she was once obese. Maggie is never mentioned, even the story of how Adam and Olivia met was changed!

I usually enjoy Liza Palmer's books, even though I don't read much "Chick Lit" because her heroines aren't cookie cutter. Alongside romantic issues, the characters deal with family and health problems. Olivia has never really dealt with her astounding weight loss. Instead of improving her existing life, she has created a brand new one. By the end of the book, I'm not sure of how much she has really changed as a person. There wasn't much character growth.

How fun this book was! And it had a great message of self discovery and self love also.

This wasn't comedic enough for me to really call it a chick flick, but it was a light women's fiction read that, though fairly simple and a little predictable, was very pleasurable leisure reading and brought me a lot of enjoyment.

Olivia's relationship with herself is something that a lot of us can relate to. She's been suppressing "Fat Liv" for many years and seeing how this interacts with "New Liv" is intriguing. She's putting on a facade for so many people, even her husband, and her realisations about how she treats other people are intriguing.

I would have liked to have seen more of how she lost her weight. She talks about having surgery scars, but she also puts a lot of effort into her diet and into going to the gym, so she made some lifestyle changes too. It's interesting to see how this doesn't affect her life terribly much. I did adore her commentary about noticing people on first dates because the girls would eat a lot to show they were low maintenance.

I also appreciated how she had anxiety and suffers from a severe panic attack--this is something I'd like to see more of in books. It fit in with Olivia's character and gave her more merit for being as strong as she is.

I adored Caroline Lang, the celebrity of the book whose life is falling apart in a way that greatly parallels Olivia's. Seeing Olivia do her publicity magic was really interesting; she and her assistant had a great grasp of how the public viewed events and how they could effectively turn this around.

This was a fabulous light read and I highly recommend it.

I had to DNF this book. I found it to be lackluster and rather dull. Not my cup of tea at all.