I want to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for giving me a copy of Waisted for review.

Alice and Daphne are both working mothers who struggle with their weight. Randy Susan Meyers explores issues of race and of course weight as they are experienced by these wonderful women. They sign up for a weight loss spa along with 5 other women, and agree to be filmed on their weight loss journey. They are promised a supportive and encouraging environment, but that is not what they get. The producers of this documentary are going to extremes to see what these women will do in order to lose weight. The contestants are pushed too far, and they decide to fight back.

I found the main characters really interesting and relatable. This novel discusses issues that go along with being overweight in the minds of the women, their families, and society as a whole. Some things that these women face are eating disorders, yo-yo dieting, binging on food, and bad self image. I also appreciated the authors look into exploitation of people's desire to lose weight in the media (documentaries, television, etc.). I felt myself sick for what the producers of the documentary were putting these women through, and I was glad they decided to take control. I also thought that the ending was well done, because it looked into life after significant weight loss. I really enjoyed these women's path to learning to love themselves. I would highly recommend this novel for those that are interested in issues surrounding weight and self image.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I truly enjoyed Waisted. The book is told through different character viewpoints. I felt this portrayal of women’s viewpoint on weight was spot on. I’ve personally struggled myself so I could relate.
The women meet at what they think is going to be a weight loss spa, little do they know the actual truth to what shall come.
I thought this was well written and am looking forward to more by this author..
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42201430

When I saw the blurb telling what this story was about, I was instantly entranced. As someone who has struggled with dieting and bouncing around on the weight scale for years, I was excited to see someone tell the story. And Randy Susan Meyers did a great job. The women in Waisted sounded so much like the voices in my own head, it was uncanny. The story centers on a group of women who enter a weight loss program, thinking they will be taught how to be positive and help themselves reach new weight goals and learn how to live in a healthy balanced manner. Instead they are humiliated, hurt, fed drugs, and berated for every bite of food they have ever taken. When they decide to exact their revenge on the people running the program, they will have to face not only the press, but also their own demons. They will have to find a way to love themselves, just as they are. I really liked this story and I loved the realities that it brought forth. We are not all size two women. And fat is not ugly. Thank you to the author and publisher for making these statements. I am grateful.
I received a free copy of story via NetGalley in exchange for my opinion and all reviews are my own.

This was a good book looking into the life of a woman who struggles with weight...an accurate portrayal of what goes thru a woman's mind. I found it a little slow at first but then got hooked into the story and the characters.

Boy, is this book relatable. I loved reading "Waisted" and found it very hard to put down. I enjoyed the characters and the storyline. I would have liked to find out more about what happened to all the women after the put out their documentary. Overall, great book!

DNF - While the subject is relatable, the different POVs and dialogue of characters are not. I am not posting this review on blog.

As I read this story I kept thinking about The Biggest Loser TV show. Conditions at the weight loss "spa" seemed a lot like what the contestants on the TV show were going through in order to lose weight. Constant exercise, food deprivation etc. Much of the book delved into what society's view of weight and appearance do to people. The two main characters were a little hard to sympathize with, so that was the unfortunate part for me. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the chance to read an advance copy.

This book was 70% amazing, 20% good, and 10% where are the editors?
Weight is SUCH a big part of how a person is viewed. You could be a Rhodes Scholar and if you were 5'2 and weighed 180 that is all people would see.
7 women sign up for a weight loss getaway called Waisted that in the pamphlet sounds amazing. They learn very quickly that the pamphlet lied. 2 of the woman, Daphne and Alice are the narrators and the chapters are labeled so you know who it is. Both are successful, educated women with families. Daphne is a rubenesque red-head whose husband sees her as beautiful even when she does not. Her mother has long been the one she looks to for approval even when her husband approves and her mother does not. This is part of what leads her to Waisted.
Alice is the product of an interracial marriage who has struggled with her identity for years and the weight gain has only impacted that. Her husband met and married her when she was skinny and admits he does not find her as sexually attractive as he once did. This is part of what leads her to Waisted.
The book focuses on the before, during, and a bit on the after of what happened at Waisted. There are some really emotional moments and some truly thought provoking moments as the reader ponders the impact of weight on preconceived notions and instant judgement on a person's worth. I think 'The Biggest Loser' and some of the backlash they received might have been some inspiration for this book.
As a woman who is very aware of what weight gain does I really appreciated this book. As an avid reader, I found some of the editing a bit off. Choppy sentences where flow was needed. Poor sentence structure in parts. With a few tweaks (this was an ARC thank you Netgalley) this would be a 4 star book. I am rounding up in hopes the tweaks are made before final publication.

I really wanted to like this book. It's not that it was a bad book, I just didn't connect to it or the characters personally.

How far would you go to be thin? I found Waisted, by Randy Susan Meyers, to really hit the spot in detailing the pressure women feel to be thin no matter what. The main characters, Daphne and Alice, find themselves at what they think will be an exclusive and healing environment where they will learn to lose weight and love themselves. What they actually experience is horrifying and shameful. The supporting characters, some of which are a bit caricature-like, really help to round out the story. In a society where thin and beautiful are the pinnacle of achievement, people who are overweight and obese get the short end of the stick, and boy do they feel it. I really enjoyed the first half of the book. The second half got a little slower in terms of hashing out the aftermath. I really enjoyed it in the end, because of its truthfulness and the humanity of its characters. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book. The comments and opinions are all my own.

I couldn't post this on Amazon.com as I had intended, because the website wouldn't let me post before the release. I can go back and do it after May 21 if I have access to this review.

Thanks!

I wanted to like this book, I really did. A bunch of women sign up for a weight loss camp that turns out to be nothing like the spa-like atmosphere they were promise, so they rebel. Sounds interesting! Sounds humorous! But there are so many background stories on the some of the characters, that my interest started to wane. As for the humor I was hoping to find in it, well, I didn’t. No humor. Lots of meandering stories, to the point where the book was chasing so many story lines that I think it lost itself by the end. Unfortunately, this book just wasn’t for me.

NOTE: Special thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Meh. I struggled with the first half of the book and then the last third got boring and felt like it was all over the place. Just not my cup of tea as I couldn't bring myself to really sympathize with any of the characters, especially Alice, enough to stay engrossed in the book without putting it down frequently.

DNF - I really wanted to like this book, I really did!! I just found myself putting it down and not really being that excited to pick it back up again. I didn't really like the main characters and the content was just kind of.....boring. Unfortunately (or really, fortunately!) I have a ton of other books in my TBR pile so I quit with this one about 50% in.
Thanks to Randy Susan Meyers, Atria and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Waisted is the latest book by Randy Susan Meyers. Ms Meyers gives us the story in the voices of the two main female characters. Anyone who has ever been on a diet and struggled with their weight will see at least some of themselves in this tale. I was given an early copy to review.

I picked this up and put it back down. I read a lot before bed and the circle of characters got confusing fast. I may try it again another time but this didn't keep my concentration

Interesting, this book has many of the themes we see a lot today. Television reality - shows and weight loss. The main characters are two woman who join others at a fat camp type atmosphere that takes place in a mansion and every thing is being filmed. Not a bad book overall.

What constitutes success or failure in a person's life? Is it body image, or something else? Alice and Daphne are successful in their own rights, but always insecure and troubled by their body images. Alice has a husband who thinks her weight reflects upon his success. Daphne has a razor-thin mother whose life revolves around her own thinness, and putting down her daughter for being "fat." These two women, along with others, sign up for a weight-loss camp, designed to send them home with slender, sculpted bodies. Oh, and by the way, their time at camp will be filmed for a documentary. Arriving at the camp, they are stripped of all their possessions, and forced to wear ugly jumpsuits. Exercise which never stops, food limited to the point of starvation levels, verbal abuse by the camp personnel - all of this becomes day-in, day-out, nonstop, all the while the cameras are rolling.
Alice and Daphne are joined by Hania as they make plans to break out of this prison before Camp Privation does them irreparable harm. Will they make their escape? Will they be able to return to their former lives? Will they be changed by this experience?
Read Waisted to find out the answers.

I have complicated feelings about this book.

Randy Susan Meyers captured the excruciating, panicked obsession so many women have with their bodies pretty accurately. The lengths these women go to in this in order to shrink themselves in this book is not far off from reality (think a twisted version of Biggest Loser) and I can't think of a single woman I know who doesn't tie at least some of her self-worth to the number she sees on the scale.


However, Alice is 5'10" and a size 18...and she talks about herself as if she's absolutely gigantic. I'm not certain how I feel about that. Is the author telling us that's fat? Or is she highlighting how crazy it is that a woman that size would find herself "fat-farm worthy"? The way Alice's husband treats her too...I almost found him completely irredeemable. He fell in love with a woman who was "small" because she was sad and broken. And it felt like he'd prefer her that way as long as she wasn't fat. Gross. So I didn't necessarily love the way things wrapped up with that relationship.


I didn't dislike this book. I was quickly pulled into the story but I found the last half of the book to be a little slow. However, be warned, anyone who suffers from disordered eating of any nature could be very triggered by this book. Even after escaping the sick reality show they signed on for, even after being treated as less than human, their disordered habits continued. So heads up there.

I thought this was an interesting take on a reality show gone horribly awry. I don't want to give away anything, but the show is actually only part of what this book deals with. It tells the story of several women who, for different reasons, struggle with their weight and ultimately sign on to do a reality show-style feature documentary. Things take a turn, and another turn, and then the book continues with the aftermath of this experience, focusing on two of the women in particular.

This book is different from how I thought it would be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It gives a lot of background into documentary making, how far people will actually go to create content (I am reluctant to call this particular type of film "art"), and how deep the ties are between how we as women think our bodies *should* be and how we see ourselves as a whole.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC to read and give an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was a great, heartfelt, warm book about weight loss, women, and today's world. It was so relatable and I truly identified with it!!
The book, while a quick, funny ready, it's a lot of topics such as mother and daughter relationships, father and daughter relationships, husband and wife relationships. I loved how it concentrated on self love and self confidence...Isn't this something we all need more of? How does society and the real world view it all??? How do we each fit in??
The chapters alternate between two women Daphne and Alice, which I really enjoyed.
I would definitely recommend this book!! I really enjoyed it.