In a confident, daring first novel, Sarai Walker mixes satire and mystery as she holds a magnifying glass over Western culture's objectification of the female gender. The result is combustion of enormously entertaining and thought-provoking proportion.
Alicia "Plum" Kettle is 30-something and fat. She's always lived with the stares, jokes and vicious maltreatment from a society that values skinny. Plum tries diet after diet to no avail. She designs her life to be as inconspicuous as possible in order to avoid the negative attention her obesity draws, and now she's decided to have weight-loss surgery to release the true--and beautiful--Alicia inside her.
Before the scheduled date of her procedure, Plum is introduced to and befriends Verena and her cadre of feminists, who are working to defy destructive gender attitudes. Meanwhile, a terrorist group known only as Jennifer begins striking around the world, targeting institutions and individuals harming women.
Plum becomes unintentionally mixed up with the elusive Jennifer as well as closely examining her own perceptions, fears and attitudes. Her carefully constructed walls of safety crumble, and she is forced to decide if she has the courage to face exposure.
Walker's brazen approach to Dietland carries a strength that will ignite readers' passionate responses. The novel is unflinchingly blunt, depicting raw emotion and uncomfortable realities. Walker writes beautifully, with natural dialogue and powerful characters. Her first-rate entrance into fiction is sure to spark the conversation she--and Plum--feel their audience needs to have. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts