Ray Garcia

“Fat Chance, Charlie Vega” is a YA novel by Crystal Maldonado discussing issues around body image.

“Fat Chance, Charlie Vega” begins with the main character Charlie Vega who struggles with body image and self-love.  Throughout the book we get to see how she learns to love herself and believe that it is possible to be someone’s first choice. For the majority of her life, she had been self-conscious, but once she got to high school it worsened. Charlie and her mom used to both be plus sized, until her mom decided to start dieting and exercising. Ever since, she has been putting Charlie down by constantly telling her to eat less and start exercising. She doesn’t know how much damage she is doing to Charlie. Now, Charlie has a best friend and her name is Amelia. In Charlie’s eyes, Amelia was perfect, she was skinny, had perfect skin, amazing hair and always got the guy or the girl. Charlie couldn’t help but compare herself to Amelia, especially because when anytime Charlie even thinks about a guy, they always go to Amelia first. 

This story goes over how both words and the environment around us can affect how we see ourselves as people. Throughout the book, Charlie starts becoming friendly with this named Brian. Brian has had his eyes on Charlie for a little bit, but Charlie just can’t seem to get past her insecurities to truly believe that a guy likes her. The author really went into detail on what goes through Charlie’s head and how she feels on the inside.  “Fat Chance, Charlie Vega” is a really good book that has LGBTQ+ representation along with representation of people who have issues regarding their weight.This book is the first book I have read regarding body image and where I can say that in a way I relate to the main character.  I can relate to Charlie, which makes me enjoy the book even more.