I really loved this collection. The essays and stories were really well written and even when I couldn't relate they were still emotional and informative. The poetry broke my heart into tiny pieces just about every time.

Fat and Queer_ An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives by Miguel M. Morales _ Goodreads.

This is a beautiful anthology full of essays, prose, poetry, sometimes fiction other times real-life accounts of what it is like to be not only queer but also fat and how these two identities intersect.

The book celebrates fat and queer bodies and identities, highlighting and challenging the negative and damaging views and beliefs held about queer and fat bodies. It offers its readers, a view to challenge their fatphobia and reclaim their own bodies.

I found that this book was a really powerful read, I particularly enjoyed the sections about gender identity and fatness, It definitely challenged my view of non-binary identities, androgyny, and thinness. Maybe I don't look like the stick-thin representation that is about, maybe I can be fat and non-binary. It has definitely given me some food for thought (excuse the pun).

My only dislike about the book was that it should come with trigger warnings, The book touches on some heavy subjects that I believe readers should be warned about to make sure they are in a safe headspace to handle them.

Fat and Queer by Bruce Owens Grimm, Miguel M Morales and Tiff Joshua T J Ferentini – Publishing 21 May 21
I would like to thank, firstly, Netgalley and the author and publisher for trusting me with an advanced reader’s copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This one-of-a-kind collection of prose and poetry radically explores the intersection of fat and queer identities, showcasing new, emerging, and established queer and trans writers from around the world. Celebrating fat and queer bodies and lives, this book challenges negative and damaging representations of queer and fat bodies and offers readers ways to reclaim their bodies, providing stories of support, inspiration, and empowerment.

I enjoyed this anthology greatly. I was so interesting to hear from other people who have bravely let us into their lives for a little while. Some of the stories were a bit hard-hitting and possibly a warning should be involved around that area, maybe at the beginning. This, however, did not detract from the beautiful writing. This brings us fat and queer folk a sense of belonging and not fighting these issues at home. I would highly recommend this book to anyone as it can inspire and give confidence to those people hiding behind their doors because they are too “fat-shamed” to go outside.

Easiest 5 Star review I have ever given.

As a fat and queer person, this book was, just, a lot. A lot of crying but a lot of smiling, too. Because I saw myself there.
It's composed of several stories, essays and poems, all deeply personal and full of feelings, about being queer and being fat at the same time, in all it's diversity, in a world where both things are frowned upon.
And it hit me right into the core.
I always felt so detached from my body. Like, there was me, smart, pretty, shy me, and there was my body, fat and unlovable. It's been a long process to stop separating myself in two. A lot of therapy, too. But when I finally accepted and started to love myself as I am, was when I stopped denying my bisexuality. My queerness empowered me in an unexpected way, and my body, my fat body, stopped being a problem and became part of who I am.
I can't separate these two parts of my identity. Which is, actually, the message of this book. That being fat and being queer, for some of us, are really connected in our identity.
I wasn't expecting to feel so seen, to be able to finally put into words some of my feelings.
More than a review, this is a big, fat, queer THANK YOU.

Thank you, Netgalley, for providing me with this ARC. The opinions expressed in this review are my own and unbiased.

This anthology included both prose, poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The majority of the pieces were nonfiction personal essays and poems. One of my favorites was actually a short story that came early on in the collection. There was a homogeneity to many of the essays that had nothing to do with lack of skill by the writers, merely an overlap in life experiences. Anyone who grew up fat and queer will find something to relate to in this book.

The excerpt (slightly shortened but otherwise unaltered) below deeply echoed my own life experience:

"These days, I'm Schrodinger's fat girl, simultaneously existing in a state of thinness and fatness depending on who's observing me and how they're doing so. In the doctor's office, I am fat. Nurses look at my BMI, waist circumference, and body fat percentage and tut. I need to get more exercise and eat better. They say -- not in so many words, but they say it nonetheless -- that I take up too much space. There should be less of me -- and what there is ought to be more socially acceptable. None of this perpetually messy hair or sprawling limbs or visible tattoos or constant fidgeting.

In the rest of my life, though, I'm not really fat, which is to say that I don't face most of the marginalization fat people have to deal with. Sure, I might have a relative see photos of me online (from a relay race, no less!) and email me to say I really ought to lose weight, but I can mostly buy clothes off the rack. I fit into airplane and movie seats without discomfort. I don't get more street harassment than the average woman or femme.

But somehow, at the same time, in groups of thin people -- particularly women, particularly straight women -- I'm definitely fat. Once I stood by quietly while two women friends bonded over having (allegedly) put on a few pounds, and how unattractive it made them. 'I'm bigger than both of you,' I eventually murmured, 'so you must think I'm a monster.' Oh, no, they assured me, 'you've just got those child-bearing hips!'"

In the varied viewpoints showcased in this collection, there is likely to be something that echoes similarly with you if you are also fat and queer, or at least fat. There were many things expressed here that I think are fairly universal of the fat experience, though not as much the queer one. If you are neither fat nor queer, I still recommend this anthology to you because it is important to understand the perspectives of others. Thin, cisgender people DO pick up this book!

This anthology was an absolute treat to read. It brought a fresh perspective on Queerness and on being fat. It was nuanced, carefully curated, and most importantly, it was so incredibly well written through and through. This is an absolute must read, whether you're fat or not, or queer or not. Specifically for me, the essay 'A Fat Lot of Good That Did: How an Art Studio Transformed My Eyes' by Jerome Stueart was a hard-hitting experience to read. It deals with not acknowledging, or not knowing, what you actually look like, and as a trans person, this really hit home. While I am not fat, and cannot relate to the experience of being fat, I am Queer, and reading about queerness and gender in this way was very affirming for me. The aspect that dealt with fatness simply gave me a perspective that is not my own, but one that I enjoyed and learned from immensely.

What an anthology! This takes a deep look into voices across the spectrum who all share their experiences being both fat and queer. A collection of short stories and poems, this causes the reader to not only check their own biases and prejudices, but helps to shine a light on aspects that many people would prefer to avoid.

Every piece was nuanced and unique and I found myself getting lost in the prose. We are so quick to read things that don't usually challenge our own ideas which is why this one is pretty important. As with all anthologies, a reader will not connect with every single text included, and that's okay. What is important about this anthology is that each one offers a unique perspective and experience that is just as vital as the others.

I did notice that most of the short stories seemed to end abruptly, with me wishing for there to be more. It almost seemed like they were ended prematurely. I wished that some of them could be developed further or edited differently. I think this would have strengthened the cohesion from piece to piece.

Overall, I thought this was a well-constructed collection that should be added to the queer canon. If one thing is taken away from this, it's that this anthology shows that all voices and experiences are worthy and necessary.

4 stars.

As a queer fat woman, this intersectional anthology is well written and incredibly relatable. There is a voice for everyone in this book.

There are some triggering pieces but they are all beautiful. I intend to purchase a physical copy of this book in May.

I've yet to read a book by this publisher which didn't ultimately change the way I think about things, and that winning streak hasn't changed with this book. Like most anthologies, there are pieces here which resonated more strongly than others, and the poetry in particular often felt a bit lacking, but the book as a whole was full of incredibly varied perspectives and a bunch of authors I'd like to read more from.

There are ideas in here that I know I still need to wrangle with and unlearn; as an example, there were several issues in here on the 'gainer' kink/fetish, which I have to admit I still don't understand, but then I suppose we should again ask ourselves whether we need to understand something in order to accept it. There were several pieces in here that I admit chafed with things I've thought and believed to be true without questioning them for a long time, based on my own experiences and position of privilege as a thin person, and it often made me uncomfortable to confront my own prejudices. This is by no means a complaint, but rather quite the opposite. It's a book which covers taboos and prejudices that are ingrained even in those of us who generally think of ourselves as being pretty tolerant and accepting, and for that reason it was often a tricky read, but I think that makes it more rewarding. I finished this book several days ago but the points raised are still percolating in my brain. I think I need to reread it a few times and then do some further reading on lots of the points it raised.

All of that is to say that this book worked particularly well, in my opinion, because it confronts topics that are so rarely written about from a firsthand perspective; I've never read essays that aren't essentially tabloid pieces about several of the issues here, and I'm glad to have had my existing biases questioned. I hope a lot of people read it.

Content Warning: eating disorders,abusive relationships and deadnaming.
A decent book full of good stories but also A LOT of typos and dangerous life lessons but most of them end in learning to love their own bodies.

This is an anthology about all queer and fat people writing their experiences, their feelings and their hearts into poetry, fictional stories, essays and real stories breaking down what it is like to be FAT AND QUEER. As someone who is fat and queer, I felt so empowered by this and I knew I would as soon as I saw it on Netgalley. Although a few essays felt explanatory, not necessary for me as I know who I am, and obviously in an anthology some won’t hit home. Rather, I enjoyed all of them to an extent! I thought these stories and these voices are so important, especially when one is not only judged for being queer... but also for being out of the social norm, weight wise.

This was beautiful and constantly asked me the question: “Are you going to love yourself?” It makes the reader wonder.. why do we let society pressure us? We live on a planet in a galaxy, we love much to 80-100 years... why would we waste them when we can realize we are queer, fat, and beautiful?

This book made me incredibly happy and I loved seeing the authors involved. This book is so important and I know its going to go into the hands of people who need it.

Thank you netgalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I picked up this book because I was curious how 'fat' and 'queer' can be interrelated and after reading this I confirmed that not only they can be related but they share a lot of characteristics. Being queer myself, I thought that I could relate a lot to this book but I didn't and I learnt that to be fat and queer at the same time is a different experience altogether and this is why I think that this book is so relevant. It opened my eyes.

The stories I appreciated the most were those which put these two terms in different lenses such as religion and politics; and also the stories by black authors which face three marginalizations at once therefore have an even harder experience. This book gives amazing representation. The only reason I gave it three stars is because I found some stories to be a bit repetitive and, while this was relevant as it highlighted more or less the same stuff all fat queers go through, I was more interested in the unusual stories about the unique experiences lived.

p.s. I loved the fact that this book was concluded by a story written by Carmen Maria Machado and that was one of my favourites from this book.

I would recommend this book mostly to people fitting the description given by the title but also to anyone who wants to learn more about how hard it is to live such a double marginalized life.

What a delightful collection of ruminations on the complexity of fatness in the queer experience. As is the case with (nearly) every anthology, not everything can be your cup of tea. However, the overall reading experience was superb. There were many moments when an author would describe a childhood experience of secreting a snack or pulling down a shirt and I felt infinitely seen.

While the anthology as a whole is quite the pleasure, I feel there are some tonal shifts that can be a bit jarring for the reader. An editorial voice that provided some framing for each movement might have helped in navigating these many and varied fat-queer voices.

Some stand out offerings (in order of appearance) are as follows: "Faithful Food" by Ruth Gibbs, "The Gender Nonconformity of My Fatness" by Caleb Luna, "A Fat Lot of Good That Did: How an Art Studio Transformed My Eyes" by Jerome Stueart, "F-Words" and "Grown" by Jonathan Hillman, "Seven Unsated Appetites" by Your Fat Friend, "The Haunted House" by Bruce Owen Grimm, and "The Trash Heap Has Spoken" by Carmen Maria Machado.

Would highly recommend for anyone wanting to know more about fatness in queer experiences. Four stars.

This collection of essays and poetry explores the experiences of queer and fat identities. It’s a beautiful collection of diverse voices speaking up about topics/identities (fatness, trans, queer) that are so often criticised and demonised by the public. It celebrates fat and queer lives and challenges so many of the damaging and pervasive opinions people have, particularly about fat bodies.

Each piece is emotional, informative, sassy and raw and will seriously make you question the world we live in. A world where anti-fatness is the norm, and anything that doesn’t fit within the white heteronormative expectation of society is seen as ‘Other’. This collection felt like a reclaiming of ‘Otherness’, a big f you to the society who consistently judge fat, queer bodies - those interacting identities give rise to dual discrimination but also power.

The pieces are so intimate I was completely drawn in to the hurt, the suffering but also the joy in finding pleasure despite public judgement. I love any book about pleasure, and this really highlighted the need for greater representation of feeling joy and pleasure in fat/queer bodies. It also seriously calls into question unhelpful anti-diet tropes and the impact that has on people from such a young age. Society is unfortunately anti-fat and despises anything that isn’t seen as the norm, but this book is really an opportunity for those who are so often marginalised (and spoken for) to reclaim the story and find joy in their identities, and it’s so wonderfully done.

I really loved the format of the book. Longer essays and then short, snappy but powerful poems. It flowed really well despite the authors covering different topics.

Oh, how this made my heart sing! Reading the title, I knew this was a book I was dying to read and I'm so glad I gave in. Being fat and queer myself, most of the representation I see for myself is one or the other and very rarely both major aspects of me at the same time. Reading the stories, essays and poems from people who were the same as me, the same two things I very rarely see together, was so refreshing and I had no choice but to sit there and finish this book in one session. While I couldn't relate to everything and some of the collection didn't quite speak to me, I could also see the importance behind an anthology like this and also the importance of everything included. I adored this.

I really enjoyed this collection of essays and poems, particularly the first piece by Jay Audrey (full disclosure: I'm biased because Jay is a friend, but even if they weren't, that piece is FIRE). I love the honesty and imagery and the incredible intermeshing of food and love and acceptance across a variety of pieces.

I was able to read an eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

Fat and Queer is a valuable addition to the queer canon, showcasing a wide range of writers: from debut to well-known (did you notice Carmen Maria Machado's name on the author list?); poets to essayists; people who happen to be fat through to gainers (people who intentionally gain weight as part of a kink); people of various races, ages, genders, and sexualities. This book contains around 40 standalone pieces of writing about many aspects of the fat queer experience. There are many difficult topics covered on these pages, and it challenges readers to think critically about any anti-fat biases we may have internalised, but also a large amount of fat queer joy.

I would have liked there to be some way of knowing the format of each piece from the contents list - particularly as I honestly can't tell if a couple of them are fiction or nonfiction - but I did like that such a wide variety of forms was collected together in one place, with poems interspersed throughout, in between longer pieces of prose.

I would have also liked there to be a list of content warnings included in this book for all readers to easily access, especially due to the frequency of some very common triggers. Here is my list of warnings for this collection: drug use, alcohol use, homophobia, fatphobia, death (including of a parent), vomit, medical content, suicide attempt, sexual content, ableism, self harm, suicide, eating disorders (including anorexia, bulemia, binge eating disorder), racism, misgendering, transphobia, rape, sexual assault & harrassment, abuse, body dysmorphia

I will also note that in several of the pieces in the eARC I accessed, there were strange errors where parts of sentences were missing, with parts of other sentences repeated in their place. Hopefully this will be corrected for the finished copy so this hasn't affected my rating,

“We're here. We're queer. We're fat.”

Fat & Queer: An anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives. Compiled by Bruce Owens Grimm, Miguel M. Morales and Tiff Joshua TJ Ferntini.

This unique collection of prose and poetry dives into fat and queer identities, giving space to new, raw talented writers of the queer and trans community from around the world. This is a bold, vivid and inspired collection, of a community with stories to tell.
I read this with my fat fingers, on my fat, queer stomach, in my gold sequenced top before posting it to the world. Not wrapped in shame, but in celebration, because of writers like these changing attitudes one word at a time.

Thanks to Netgallery and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for giving me the chance to read this advance copy in exchange for a review.

*I received an ARC by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free anthology*

First of all: this book should have content or trigger warnings. Not only can the eating or diet stuff be immensely triggering, but there are also instances of sexual abuse and other heavy topics.

Having said that, this intersectional take on queerness and fat bodies (and being BIPoC) was needed and is empowering. It shows how harmful diet culture is, how much identity is falsely derived from weight, how much harm people can do, how hard it is to come to terms with one's weight and sexuality.

I didn't like all stories or poems, but some were brilliant and really spoke to me. The variety of topics is immense: from harmful eating habits, disorders, Weight Watchers, harassment, hate, body and sex positivity, dieting, buying clothes, feeling comfortable in one's queer body, or being a gainer. (I personally couldn't relate at all to the last topic, but it belongs in this anthology and it was fascinating to read about it.)

It is striking how one always needs to be less (or told) to be allowed to take up more metaphorical space because taking up actual space is wrong. And what kind of queer body is allowed to look like... Fascinating.


Here's a quote, going back to why this book needs trigger warnings:
"The more I dieted, the more I began to enjoy the sensation of depriving myself. There was a certain masochistic, authoritarian pride in restricting calories."

4 Stars

"We’re here. We’re queer. We’re fat."

I will start by saying that this anthology contains some beautifully written poems and prose by a diverse number of people. Some of the pieces I connected to on a personal level, and others that gave such an insight to the intersectionality of being queer and fat/trans and fat. As someone who identifies as queer and fat it was refreshing to read something positive about queerness/fatness, instead of it being completely negative.

I really enjoyed the reading experience, some of the poems lost me which is why it's only 4 stars and not a full 5, but I highly recommend giving this anthology a read.

As this collection featured the raw and real events from the lives of the contributors, some of the stories in this anthology could be triggering for a lot of people, so I’ve included a list of trigger warnings.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC

TW // mention of suicide, self-harm, homophobia, fatphobia, sexual harassment, rape, and eating disorder.