My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant

DNF @ 21%

I wanted to like this book, honest! I wanted to love it, in fact, because the premise sounded so interesting. A body positive main character? Hell yes! A teenager who needs to get healthier for the sake of her asthma? That was me! A food diary with personality? Unique! The premise reeled me in and the first chapter had me hooked.

I thought I could relate to BB's relationship with food and struggle with health - and that I would enjoy a peek into this character's life. Unfortunately, things began to fall apart very quickly and by the 21% mark I was too mentally exhausted to continue.

And I don't just mean the kind of mentally exhausted that comes with a boring or poorly written book. I mean this book is deeply triggering for me and I quit for the sake of my own mental health. There is nothing “body positive” about the language or events portrayed in the portion I read!

Starting in chapter two, BB ends up being disgustingly, unrealistically harassed by a horrible nurse - and her mother doesn't even defend her! As someone with some major issues dealing with my health because I hate how dehumanized I feel when even an injury from an accident is somehow blamed on weight, I hate that this book is perpetuating those fears of medical professionals. If someone spoke to me like the caricature of a nurse in this book, I'd run out of the clinic feeling suicidal! That's how abhorrently unprofessional and unrealistic it is! Here, have a selection of quotes to illustrate:

01) ???I know you girls. You think because you have such a pretty face you can get away with being very fat????

02) ???Excuse me. Well, you can look pretty in the grave, then.???

03) ???See,??? says the nurse, ???you are selfish for being so fat. You are making your own mother cry.???

04) ???Ha! Well, you eat like a feeding machine.???

and

???You need to lose weight,??? the nurse says. Oh, does she have to be so matter-of-fact? It???s like her accent immediately gets more Nigerian. Well, I???ve heard it all before. Yawn. ???It will help your asthma.??? She is wearing a really nice gold watch. It???s thin and antique-looking; it looks beautiful against her dark skin, like it???s in a velvet box.

01) OBESE? Says the actually QUITE FAT HERSELF nurse.

02) The nurse celebrates with a smile so hard I see her fillings. They are the colour of sardines. And I absolutely HATE sardines.

03) It???s all the girls at my school go on about: how to get thinner as quickly and as ferociously as possible. Honestly, they???ll stoop to the wormiest, shallowest, ugliest pits of lowdom to get there and will stop at nothing. And once they???ve done all the starving one can do, overdosed on paracetamol and cranky coffee and nail biting???and their breath stinks like an old fish tank???they???ll binge on 1,000 donuts, cry themselves into a frenzy and do it all over again.

04) I wish Dad could be the person [the dog] thinks he is???.He probably sees Dad like some action-movie-star actor hero???not a broke, grey-haired wiry stick of a man with round tortoiseshell spectacles.

05) Alicia is always very dehydrated; her lips are always crusty and look like shrinking fried cod. Maybe that???s why she???s always a moody cow, cos she???s so thirsty?

06) I hold her hair up like how you???re meant to do for a friend but Alicia???s hair is really thin and childish and there isn???t much to grab, and plus, she???s not my friend.

07) She???s still on the floor. She???s wearing tight jeans, little black kitten heels, a stripy T-shirt. Kind of high-street trying to be French but mostly looking a bit like you work at Pizza Express. The thread???s so cheap it???s already worn on the bust, showing the print of her dotty bra.

it's okay because a chubby girl said it

???Why would you say that, anyway? This fat talk is getting so long. It???s all you talk about, fat, fat, fat. You talk about fatness quite a lot for somebody that doesn???t care about being fat.???

???No, I just like to point it out before somebody else points it out to me.???

?????????K. All I???m saying is, it???s kind of annoying, just get on with it.??? Dove licks her thumb. ???Like, it???s not the only thing about you.???