From the Publisher
An Amazon Top 100 Editors' Pick of the Year One of Entertainment Weekly's "10 Best Books of 2015" One of Bustle's "2015’s 25 Best Books, Fiction Edition" A New York Post “Best Novel to Read This Summer” An Us Weekly “Hot Summer Novel” O, The Oprah Magazine, "10 Titles to Pick Up Now" A USA Today “New and Noteworthy” Book One of Vulture's "8 Books You Need to Read This May" A Kirkus "Best Fiction of 2015" Title One of BookPage's "Best Books of 2015" One of Kobo.com's "Must Read Fiction Debuts of 2015" A LitReactor Staff Pick: The Best Books of 2015 One of New York Daily News's "10 Books for Your Summer Reading List" Women's National Book Association, "Great Group Reads 2015" An Indie Next Pick “Dietland completely blew me away. It's audacious and gutsy and heartbreaking and I want to grab women on the street and shake them until they promise to read it—and also buy copies for their daughters.” —Jennifer Weiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good In Bed, In Her Shoes, and others “Walker’s first novel leaves chick lit in the pixie dust, treading the rougher terrain of radical critique and shadowy conspiracies — territory closer to Rachel Kushner than Helen Fielding.”—New York Magazine, One of Vulture's "8 Books You Need to Read This May" "If Amy Schumer turned her subversive feminist sketches into a novel, dark on the inside but coated with a glossy, palatable sheen, it would probably look a lot like Dietland—a thrilling, incendiary manifesto disguised as a beach read...It’s a giddy revenge fantasy that will shake up your thinking and burrow under your skin, no matter its size."—Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A) “I've never dropped anyone out of a helicopter. But Dietland resonated with the part of me that wants, just once, to deck a street harasser. At the very least, I wish an incurable itch upon everyone who has catcalled me on the street. I wish food poisoning and public embarrassment on everyone I've heard make a rape joke. I wish toothache and headlice and too-small shoes upon every stranger who has told me to smile. Which is to say, sometimes I forget I'm angry, but I am. Dietland is a complicated, thoughtful, and powerful expression of that same anger.”—Annalisa Quinn, NPR.org “Plum Kettle, a ghostwriter for a popular teen mag, is lured into a subversive sisterhood in this riotous first novel. Finally, the feminist murder mystery/makeover story we’ve been waiting for.”—O, The Oprah Magazine, One of "10 Titles to Pick Up Now" "A delightful, page-turning thriller that's also a feminist revenge fantasy. I tore through it in about two days—it is amazingly accessible while still being whip-smart, and it deals with timely issues without feeling like a lame Law & Order 'ripped from the headlines' stunt."——Jessica Grose, Lenny Letter "[Ms. Walker's] writing can spit with venom, at the rigid expectations of women’s weight and sexuality...As a social commentary, Dietland is no shrill tirade. Ms. Walker captures the misery of failing to fit in, to fit into the right clothes, to fit in with the right people and their expectations."—The Economist "At 300 lbs., Plu —
Library Journal - Audio
07/01/2015
Plum Kettle has always been a fat girl. Ridiculed for her size throughout her life, she is determined to go through with weight-loss surgery after an endless stream of diets fail her miserably. Plum works from a café, ironically writing life advice for a girls' magazine, despite barely living a life of her own. Enter a mysterious women in combat boots who follows her around the city, eventually leaving her a book that sends her down a pathway that will change her life forever. Not a diet book but an anthem for all who have ever felt the slightest inkling that their body is not good enough, this novel will hit home with most listeners. Tara Sands invigorates this audiobook with such finesse that it's easy to get lost in her performance. She ably conveys moments when characters are wry, sarcastic, mournful, and dramatic, among a wealth of other emotions. VERDICT Put this in the hands of all feminists, no matter their shape and size. ["An edgy and exciting mix of mystery, crime, and social critique of gender and beauty standards at breakneck speed": LJ 4/15/15 starred review of the Houghton Harcourt hc.]—Stephanie Charlefour, Wixom P.L., MI
Library Journal
★ 04/15/2015
Plum Kettle likes living under the radar—pretty hard to do when you're 300 pounds or so. She lives alone, doesn't socialize, and telecommutes, answering readers' emails for the pretty, slim editor of a teen magazine. Plum dreams about her scheduled weight-loss surgery, the day she'll begin her real life; she's too distracted to pay much attention to the blooming acts of international terrorism against men who treat women like property and objects. But someone's onto her—someone who pushes back against Plum's efforts to be invisible, who anonymously leaves Plum a book that challenges all she's ever thought to be true about women and weight loss. Little does she know how close finding her voice will bring her to the enigmatic and stunning acts of revenge. This novel is like a roller coaster. Before you know it, you're racing through an edgy and exciting mix of mystery, crime, and social critique of gender and beauty standards at breakneck speed. Vivid characters and sometimes surprising acts of violence make the story pop. VERDICT Ideal for readers seeking something more socially aware and gender-conscious in their women's fiction; book groups will find lots to discuss.—Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY
AUGUST 2015 - AudioFile
Tara Sands’s versatile performance captures the powerful message and feminist themes of this compelling story. Plum is fighting her weight to become Alicia—her thin, beautiful alter ego. In order to earn the money for the plastic surgery she needs, she joins the Baptiste Plan and finds herself in the midst of a different kind of war—an undercover feminist movement. Sands’s range and command of voices dramatically capture the diverse characteristics of macho misogynists, fierce feminists, bubbleheaded porn stars, and horny frat boys. Additionally, Sands’s deft control of pacing and volume conveys an air of ironic nonchalance that accentuates the story’s shocking actions against women as well as the satire of this entertaining story. M.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2015-03-05
Hilarious, surreal, and bracingly original, Walker's ambitious debut avoids moralistic traps to achieve something rarer: a genuinely subversive novel that's also serious fun. At just over 300 pounds, Plum Kettle is waiting for her real life to start: she'll be a writer. She'll be loved. She'll be thin. In the meantime, she spends her days ghostwriting advice to distraught teenage girls on behalf of a popular teen magazine ("Dear Kitty, I have stretch marks on my boobs, please help"), meticulously counting calories ("turkey lasagna (230)"), and fantasizing about life after weight-loss surgery. But when a mysterious young woman in Technicolor tights starts following her, Plum finds herself drawn into an underground feminist community of radical women who refuse to bow to oppressive societal standards. Under the tutelage of Verena Baptist, anti-diet crusader and heiress to the Baptist diet fortune (a diet with which Plum is intimately familiar), Plum undertakes a far more daring—and more dangerous—five-step plan: to live as her true self now. Meanwhile, a violent guerrilla group, known only as "Jennifer," has emerged, committing acts of vigilante justice against misogynists. As her surgery date nears and Jennifer's acts grow increasingly drastic, Plum finds she's at the center of what can only be described as a literal feminist conspiracy—and she's transforming into a version of herself she never knew existed. But while it would be easy for the book to devolve into a tired parable about the virtues of loving yourself just the way you are, Walker's sharp eye and dry humor push it away from empty platitudes and toward deeper and more challenging turf. Ultimately, for all the unsettling pleasure of Walker's splashier scenarios—and there are many—it's Plum's achingly real inner life that gives the novel its arresting emotional weight. Part Fight Club, part feminist manifesto, an offbeat and genre-bending novel that aims high—and delivers.