The Story is Told in Vignettes

Awad, speaking by phone last week from a book tour stop in Salt Lake City, says she wanted to explore "the notion of transformation as something that always facilitates a happy ending," questioning the idea that reaching a goal will necessarily result in happiness.

"I wanted to explore the complications around transformation. Can you really leave yourself behind? How much of that fat girl ghost is really following Lizzie after she's lost the weight?"

The book explores not only how people see her, but how she imagines that they do. "So much of who Lizzie is is bound up in how she is seen."

The story is told in vignettes, in part, says Awad, "so [readers] can zoom in on these moments when body image is really rearing its head." In one, Lizzie struggles in a dressing room to fit into a Diane von Furstenberg dress; in another, we watch her as an uncomfortable participant as her mother parades Lizzie around town in a skimpy dress.

Each one is distinct but connected, and "all together form the sort of warped mirror she is looking into."

Awad says experiences in her own life drew her to the subject.

"Body image is something I have definitely struggled with myself," she says. Awad said she wanted to delve deeper, looking at the related issues that often don't get as much attention.

http://www.providencejournal.com/entertainmentlife/20160228/13-ways-of-looking-at-fat-girl-is-brown-grads-first-novel