A good read where a woman is fat without this being the defining theme

[Mittens67]

Does such a thing exist?
All I have come across are either poor sad fat whoever loses weight and finds love/ success etc or poorly disguised lectures on body positivity.

try The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville.

jennifer weiner books have plus size main characters but the size/weight is very much acknowledged in all of them

little earthquakes is my favourite

good in bed is fantastic too

Thank you for the suggested books I will be doing some shopping! I like a range of reading so will look at them all.
I do like Vera on telly or at least I did until the script writers recently decided to “educate” viewers on transgenderism.
And to those who think I am odd to talk about this maybe you have read different books than me. In my experience a character’s appearance is always described.

Karen Pirie (Val McDermid) - I’m not sure what size she is but she self describes as a sturdy/dumpy type, worries about it briefly once a book and then gets on with her police job and love life. So probably quite true to life with the “just getting on with it” approach.

I can reassure you there's nothing like that in the books! (Vera)

This is a great question.

I really notice it when a character is described so that you know her size, and never find the heroines of anything to be fat without it also being seen as a character flaw.

Sadly, I can't really think of any, though am going to set my mind to it now. Maybe any farmers' wives in books set on farms (The Darling Buds of May? was that even a book first?)

This is going to become my mission now.

Having written a couple of books with an overweight heroine (and one where the heroine has severe body confidence issues) I have to say that the reading public HATED reading about a heroine who referred to herself as less than perfect. I had one review which told me that she should just lose weight and get over herself.

So now I don't write about overweight heroines. They are just 'ordinary' now.

That’s a lovely novel, regardless of the female protagonist’s size, but yes, OP. One of the nice things about it is that you have two POV characters, and the woman loathes her looks, while the man immediately likes them, and is attracted to her. They’re looking at the same face and body, but through two different lenses.

OP, are you reading a lot of chick lit or something? Most literary fiction doesn’t categorise its female characters on body size. Much of it doesn’t really take much interest in the specifics of appearance. Colm Toibin almost never describes his characters’ appearance. We never know what Eilis looks like in Brooklyn and its sequel, for instance.

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel has a lead character who is an overweight female. Good but not the most cheerful read!

On the lighter side this list has a few options.

OP, are you reading a lot of chick lit or something? Most literary fiction doesn’t categorise its female characters on body size. Much of it doesn’t really take much interest in the specifics of appearance. Colm Toibin almost never describes his characters’ appearance. We never know what Eilis looks like in Brooklyn and its sequel, for instance.

I completely disagree. I got particularly annoyed at a Peter Carey novel because the female character discribed herself as a tall elegant woman on the first page. Like any woman would actually do that.

I tried to read the first one of those and couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters with all the whinging about her weight!

Off the top of my head I can only think of Vera from the Anne Cleeve series.

If I recall, Mma Ramotswe is traditionally built. She would never call herself fat.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Book by Peter Hedges

That's got a big fatty in it!

There's a whole sub genre of books where the female protagonist is fat and a successful, gorgeous rich man is in love with her. My friend writes them!

Very true 😁. But then as per the OP, we as readers know what she means and she is clearly not focussing on this as something negative and trying to change it and it's never the theme of the book.

I was also going to suggest these.

The television series had the slim and attractive actress Sharon Small play her.
Annoying that they changed this.
In much the same way, in the books by Anne Cleeves, Vera is very fat and very scruffy-some people think she is a bag lady!
Yet, on TV, the attractive Brenda Blethyn played her and, apart from the hat, she only looked a bit dowdy-certainly not a bag lady!

Yes, I struggled with this too. She feels uncomfortable and paranoid getting into a car because of her weight - seriously??

I was watching Rivals and just realised this is probably Lizzie. Though in the book she and Rupert are friends precisely because she is too fat for him to sleep with her.

I was going to say Number One Ladies Detective Agency too

Charlotte Stein. If you like a bit of smut with your romance, particularly.

The Corrina Chapman stories are good if you like cosy detective fiction.

There are plenty of fat people in Dickens, as well as almost every other recognisable type of human. Mrs Gamp seems to be famous, for some reason.

Guy de Maupassant's Boule de Suif is an amazing story about moral hypocrisy.

Samuel Pepys was very enthusiastic about abundant female flesh, which he tends to describe according to where his eyes & hands focused. The diaries are quite a challenging read, though, and he basically rapes several of them.

I'm also a fan of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency!

Believe it or not, Goodreads has a whole page on 'Fat Girl Fiction'. Can't vouch personally for them, but it's a long list 🙂

Was just about to say this! Love her books.