Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It
Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It
Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It
Audiobook6 hours

Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It

Written by Brittany Gibbons

Narrated by Lauren Fortgang

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

Told through a series of larger-than-life snapshots, a hilarious memoir in essays about love, sex, marriage, motherhood, bikinis, and loving your body, no matter what size you are from the acclaimed blogger and body image advocate.

Brittany Gibbons has been a plus size her whole life. But instead of hiding herself in the shadows of thinner women, Brittany became a wildly popular blogger and national spokesmodel—known for stripping on stage at TedX and standing in Times Square in a bikini on national television, and making skinny people everywhere uncomfortable.

Talking honestly about size and body image on her popular blog, brittanyherself.com, she has ignited a national conversation. Now in her first book, she shares hilarious and painfully true stories about her life as a weird overweight girl growing up in rural Ohio, struggling with dating and relationships, giving the middle finger to dieting, finding love with a man smaller than her, accidentally having three kids, and figuring out the secret to loving her curves and becoming a nationally recognized body image advocate. And there’s sex, lots of it!

Fat Girl Walking isn’t a diet book. It isn’t one of those former fat people memoirs about how someone battled, and won, in the fight against fat. Brittany doesn’t lose all the weight and reveal the happy, skinny girl that’s been hiding inside her. Instead, she reminds us that being chubby doesn’t mean you’ll end up alone, unhappy, or the subject of a cable medical show. What’s important is learning to love your shape. With her infectious humor and soul-baring honesty, Fat Girl Walking reveals a life full of the same heartbreak, joy, oddity, awkwardness, and wonder as anyone else’s. Just with better snacks.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateMay 26, 2015
ISBN9780062433091
Author

Brittany Gibbons

Brittany Gibbons writes the blog Brittanyherself.com and is the curator of the Facebook group The Curvy Girl Guide, a plus-size model, and a nationally recognized body image advocate. She is also a mother of three and lives with her family and adoring husband in Ohio.

Related to Fat Girl Walking

Related audiobooks

Personal Memoirs For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Fat Girl Walking

Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

35 ratings11 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It was like listening to the story of my life! I have been that girl. The one who bounces between a size 16 and 20. The one who was the "secret" girlfriend. The one who was petrified by what I learned about sex in Catholic school, worried about eating around othes, and tried getting out of swimming in gym class. I even went to the same college as the author! Brittany...O-H...?! This really is an accurate description of what the chubby girl goes through. I am so happy that the author got a grip on self acceptance. I am working on gettin there, too! This book is full of emotions, laughter, and hope. I highly recommend it.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What Brittany Gibbons does best—talk, and talk openly— highlights her early tumultuous relationship with food, family, and love; what Brittany Gibbons becomes, through a heartfelt and humorous memoir, is a role model, wife, and mother. “Professionally fat” Gibbons guides us through her rollercoaster life with self-deprecating wit and razor-sharp insights. After struggling with being overweight most of her entire life, Gibbons attempts college, marriage, and motherhood—sometimes with astounding successes and sometimes with unparalleled failures. Throughout it all, she reminds us, only you have the power to let outside influences affect you: “I’m not obligated or required to accept negative commentary about my looks…I’m just confident enough to know it’s not true.” TED Talk participant and Internet phenomenon Gibbons delivers an incisive, powerful, and entertaining commentary on our society today, warts and all.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fat Girl Walking is a blog-turned-memoir of one curvy woman's journey to self-acceptance. The author encourages other well-endowed women to learn to be comfortable in their bodies. She imparts some wisdom and a good bit of humor, describing various events from her life in a chatty, down-to-earth style. I didn't connect with her on all levels, but I appreciate the message she is sending here. I'm guessing that fans of her blog will be the most enthusiastic readers, but it's certainly not necessary to be familiar with the blog to enjoy reading this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author is very funny and has some wonderful insights into what it is like to be anything other than a size 2 model. Despite being on the large side, she has it all – career, happy marriage, kids, etc. I loved it!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Brittany Gibbons is a blogger of brittanyherself which, unfortunately, I was never introduced to until reading her book. However, I actually like the direction of Gibbons' book better than her blog (I know, slay me now, bloggers). Gibbons does say the book is in a different layout than her blog, though, so maybe be gentle with me. Both Brittany's blog and her book are so blunt and honest. The book in particular will allow anyone easy access to relate to her many essays and funny anecdotes. One in particular would have made me uncomfortable in a different voice, but Brittany's friendly tone made me laugh at the horrific event.There are a few things that break up the book nicely, like a list of pros and cons of being pregnant as well as bullet points of what to say to annoying people while you're pregnant. Even if you've never been pregnant, you can still laugh out loud at these lists.I honestly didn't expect Fat Girl Walking to make me laugh so much or for me to relate so much to it. Yes, I'm a plus-size gal. But even if I wasn't, I could still relate. I'm not married, I'm childless, and I'm not in the same age range as the author, so I didn't know if the book would really be my thing. But the way Brittany Gibbons writes her experiences MAKES everything easy to relate to. Or so hilarious that you keep reading and feel as if you're a part of her life. Either way, you can't put the book down.Issues covered in the book--that I actually wish were tackled more--are sure to make plus-size people nod and others think hard about what they say/think.I like how Fat Girl Walking speaks to all women. Not just women who are overweight, but women. Women. All women. And one quote really spoke to me that I've been trying to put into words for a long time:If we don't say enough and stop the race to the beauty-standard finish line, the casualties and the resentment women have toward each other will grow.Yes! We are women. (Hear us roar?) Let's stick together instead of constantly looking each other up and down or challenging each other to a race of the fittest. Instead, help each other out. Why scold someone for being overweight when evidence shows for one, it doesn't work to help motivate them to do anything you're trying to get them to do, and second, just why? Why question anything about another women or be judgmental? That's a part of what this book is trying to say along with--why question yourself? Let's just...not. I'm paraphrasing for Gibbons here, but stop criticizing others and yourself when your body is beautiful. You have to think of every part of your body as special--like a part of a scrapbook.This book was made for anyone to read because it's full of wisdom, quirkiness, and experiences (mostly crazy) that the author has gone through so you don't have to. The author has a clear, strong voice and it's obvious she wants to convey a message of empowerment. This will be a great summer beach read (as long as you can control your emotions--laughter and tears).The idea behind this book is great. To read about someone who is plus-size, who is REAL, and who is more than OK with their body and self--but who doesn't deny the trials of how hard it is to fall in love with their body--is special to me. And I think it will be to others as well.I don't think I have to say anything else. I loved, loved this book. I recommend it to anyone and everyone
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read for Review/Listened for Fun (Harper Collins/Borrowed from a Friend)Overall Rating: 4.25Story Rating: 4.50Other (pacing,narrative) Rating: 4.00Audio Rating: 4.50First Thought when Finished: Fat Girl Walking by Brittany Gibbons was not what I expected, it was more!Overall Thoughts:I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this auto-biography since I had never been on Brittany Gibbons website. I just kind of loved the title of the book. This ended up being a funny laugh out loud story with a lot of heart. She is unapologetically herself. She doesn't act like she is always confident or always comfortable in her own skin. What she does do is prove that you can be confident and comfortable in your own skin most of the time (hey we are women even super models probably have off days). She lives her life fully and isn't afraid to share. This was also a love letter to her husband of sorts because she gives him a lot of credit for being supportive. That made me swoon. Real life romance=Nothing Better!Audio Thoughts: Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang /Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins I had read half of the book before a friend let me borrow her audio copy. I went back to listen to the whole thing because Lauren was a great choice to narrate this story. She had just the right amount of sass, brass, and smart. I am usually not a fan of other people (other than the author) narrating auto-biographies but in this case it totally worked!Final Thought: I would totally recommend this quick fun read for summer!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    candid and insightful...and very relatable...
    take out, change the narrative you speak to yourself and choose very deliberately to love myself just as I am, today, here and now.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had not heard of Brittany Gibbons until picking up this book. This was a pretty interesting book about loving your body as it is. It an was easy and fast read. The writing style was friendly and conversational. No earth shattering revelations but I enjoyed reading it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book and Brittany's journey from adolescent to mother of 3. This book has the potential to be relatable to a wide variety of women, but it is really intended for those of us who have had issues with our bodies or its size, and in my own case for nearly 35 years, longer than she is even on the planet.

    I could do without the crudness, then of course, she would not be who she is, you either take her as she is or not.

    If you don't like reading the word vagina on every 5th page, this book is not for you, nor will be for you if you are not able to at least tolerate ( even if you hate it, like I did ) crude words for sex, using the bathroom and body parts.

    I related to her body issues in many many ways, but she never really had an eating disorder like I do, she is just her size partially thru genetics and partially because she enjoys eating.

    I highly recoomend it for those who feel comfortable with the things stated above.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Simply loved it! Good humour and true facts of life!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The topic is worthy, but the analysis weak. More of a cheerleading rhetoric with anecdotes, some of which are quite sad.