📖 Overview
The Not So Subtle Art of Being a Fat Girl is Tess Holliday's memoir chronicling her path from small-town Mississippi to becoming a prominent plus-size model and body positivity advocate. She recounts experiences from her childhood, early modeling attempts, and rise to social media fame.
Through personal stories and reflections, Holliday details the barriers she faced in the fashion industry and her determination to challenge beauty standards. The narrative follows her professional achievements, including becoming the first model of her size to sign with a major modeling agency.
Holliday shares her relationships, motherhood, and the creation of the #effyourbeautystandards social media movement. She discusses mental health challenges and public criticism while building her career.
The memoir examines themes of self-acceptance, resilience, and the impact of social expectations on identity. Holliday's story contributes to broader conversations about size discrimination and representation in media.
👀 Reviews
Many readers found the book repetitive and lacking substance, noting it reads more like social media posts than a memoir. On Goodreads, several reviews mention the book jumps between topics without clear organization or deeper insights.
Readers appreciated:
- Raw honesty about body image struggles
- Discussion of modeling industry barriers
- Personal stories about family relationships
Common criticisms:
- Basic writing style with grammar errors
- Too much focus on social media feuds
- Limited actionable advice
- Defensive tone throughout
Ratings across platforms:
Goodreads: 3.4/5 (800+ ratings)
Amazon: 3.7/5 (200+ ratings)
As one Goodreads reviewer noted: "This reads like a long Instagram caption - surface level with lots of hashtags but no depth." An Amazon reviewer wrote: "Her story is important but the delivery needed work."
Several readers mentioned they connected more with Holliday's social media content than the book itself.
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Hunger by Roxane Gay This memoir explores the intersection of body image, trauma, and identity through a writer's personal experiences with weight and society's responses.
The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor The book presents a framework for understanding body liberation and dismantling systemic oppression related to body size.
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Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker The book combines personal stories with research to challenge societal narratives about body size and worth.
🤔 Interesting facts
🌟 Tess Holliday wrote this memoir while simultaneously launching #EffYourBeautyStandards, a social media movement that gained over 4 million followers
📚 The book details Holliday's journey from being a bullied teenager in Mississippi to becoming the first size 22 model signed by a major modeling agency
💫 Before her success, Holliday worked as a makeup artist and was rejected multiple times by the modeling industry until she started posting her own photos on Model Mayhem
🎯 Holliday's real name is Ryann Hoven, and she chose her professional name to honor her late uncle Holley, changing the spelling to "Holliday"
⭐ The memoir addresses serious topics including domestic violence, single motherhood, and body positivity while maintaining a conversational, diary-like writing style