***SPOILER ALERT*** If you have not yet read this book but intend to you may want to finish it before you read the discussion questions. There are some spoilers herein!
Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot
At 28, former teen-pop-star
Heather Wells feels as though she has lost everything: her family and fortune (her mom fled the country with Heather’s earnings), her recording contract, her slender waistline, and her fiance, Jordan, a philandering, boy-band singer. Then Jordan’s brother, Cooper, a dreamy private investigator and family black sheep, offers Heather room and board in exchange for clerical work, and she finds an additional job as a residence-hall director at a nearby Greenwich Village university. After several female students turn up dead at the dorm, Heather takes on her own stealthy investigation and finds herself the target of the killer. In the first title in her Heather Wells series, Cabot combines a fairly straightforward mystery with a single-girl-in-the-city plot in which Heather triumphs over cheating guys, bad luck, and a fattist society. Most of the characters are two-dimensional, but Heather’s strong, amusing voice, the plot twists, and the possibility of romance will draw mystery and chick-lit readers alike.
Heather Wells feels as though she has lost everything: her family and fortune (her mom fled the country with Heather’s earnings), her recording contract, her slender waistline, and her fiance, Jordan, a philandering, boy-band singer. Then Jordan’s brother, Cooper, a dreamy private investigator and family black sheep, offers Heather room and board in exchange for clerical work, and she finds an additional job as a residence-hall director at a nearby Greenwich Village university. After several female students turn up dead at the dorm, Heather takes on her own stealthy investigation and finds herself the target of the killer. In the first title in her Heather Wells series, Cabot combines a fairly straightforward mystery with a single-girl-in-the-city plot in which Heather triumphs over cheating guys, bad luck, and a fattist society. Most of the characters are two-dimensional, but Heather’s strong, amusing voice, the plot twists, and the possibility of romance will draw mystery and chick-lit readers alike.
Book Club discussion questions:
- On a scale of 1 (lamer than lame) and 5 (super fantastic) rate the following:
- Style of Writing – 4 out of 5
- Development of Characters – 3 out of 5
- Flow of storyline – 3.5 out of 5
- Over all book – 4 out of 5
- Heather has quite a history, what do you think you would do with all of the turmoil? Heather exuded self-confidence and forgiveness that I am not certain I would share if I were in her situation.
- What was your most favorite part? There was some redundancy (e.g. residence hall versus dorm) that got skimmed over.
- What was your least favorite part? The love relationship didn’t blossom.
- What did you “not see coming”? That Rebecca used to be fat.
- The book starts out in a dressing room, would you have done the same this Heather did? I’m not a fan of vanity sizing either but if the jeans looked good, what does it matter what size they are?
- Would you have pursued the issue of murder, if everyone just wanted to brush it under the rug? It wouldn’t have made a very good story if Heather didn’t and then I was dubious of the private detecting and police work that went on in this particular story. I let the experts do their thing, however, in a role such as Heather’s I perhaps would have definitely asked questions.
- This is a random question, but did you get annoyed by Heather constantly correcting herself when she called Fisher Hall a dorm? Yes! (see my answer to question 3).
- Will you read any more of Cabot’s books, specifically the sequel, Size 14 Is Not Fat Either? Yes. It was a fun book. It’s on my nightstand to be read next, actually. I want to see if she gets Cooper after all.
