The Curvy Girls Club
Michele Gorman
 
My answers to the questionnaire at the end of The Kindle edition which I have just finished:
1) I hated wearing shorts or tee shirts when I was young, because of my skinny arms and legs. In fact, I was in my twenties before I started wearing either with any confidence. And when I looked on Google Images for TCGC the first images of a person was for this girl who instantly attracted me:
 
But is what I find attractive the result of projection or conditioning? I have had derogatory thoughts about skinny girls (and boys, but then that would apply to most boys, because I don't find any of them attractive, regardless of size or shape) and I know that is unfair, because it is only based on appearance without knowing anything about the person. I have had friendships with skinny girls, which have always been purely platonic. But you know, there have always been skinny girls who befriend and hang out with a chubby because that enhances their own size and shape and the majority of guys will flock to the skinny one. As a Scottish child, the sisters Maggie and Daphne in The Broons, presented the social perception of slim = beautiful and fat = stodgy. That is a hell of a norm to reject and overcome, especially for anyone struggling with their own self-perception and lack of self-confidence.

2) Not easy. Katie, obviously, as we are observing from inside her head, trying to warn her about mistakes we can predict and encourage her to understand others perceptions of her behaviour; Jane too, because who hasn't longed for a quick fix and been tempted to believe false promises for impossible gains (or Losses); Ellie is the girl next door whose mistakes we try to see through for her and yet whose paranois sucks us in – we'll always stand by her, right up to the firing squad! Oh Pixie – she's me! Except for the end, because I wouldn't sacrifice my friends for my business plans. But she does it for her kids! So that's different and acceptable! Oh, but while she was needy and vulnerable she definite;y was ME. But when she became assertive and veered into aggressive – no way. They are all 100% real and I believe in them all. Oh and Rob – but he's a Guy!

3) The business offers Pixie a way out of her predicament – failed marriage, two kids, no cash, one bedroom flat; so she is under financial and emotional pressure; but hey, the 'Fat Friends' Speed Dating is popular and successful and indicates a good growth area for the Club – okay, a change of name might be more acceptable, but certainly her business case is strong, even if her need for developing it has an emotional drive. We're none of us just one aspect of a personality, we have a mix of motivations and reasons for who we ar and what we do. Don't condemn Pixie!

4) I wouldn't buy stuff over the Internet for weight loss: God, you can gate Tapeworm eggs in pill form, you really don't know what you're taking. Jane lost her BBC TV Presenter job because (though unstated) she was overweight. So even though she clains to be no longer interested in going back to that career path, she still has a need to shed weight, and that need can spiral out of control. I'm sure lots of people have started to make a small change in their behaviour, and once that became to norm, to go a little further. It can be a twenty minute walk twice a week, three times, four, every day, thiry minutes, and so on until the behaviour modification becomes an obsession which replaces the perceived obsession with food. They say that some people have an addictive personality, and anything taken to extremes can become harmful, but it's so easy to get into that.

5) Who is the stronger character, Katie or Pixie: How to answer this. Katie as the central character is the more fully rounded, even if she becomes less curvy, so as a character she is the stronger; and she is determined to stand by her principles, but would never go to extremes to enforce her wishes. Pixie has greater personal motivation (her kids) so she will always go that extra mile.

6) Oh yes, I've snooped. But that's okay, it's not malicious, just natural curiosity. But I've been snooped on, and I've been the victim of malicious email slandering which was really horrible! It's actualy a morally difficult question. We all want to say the ends don't justify the means if the means are underhand, sly, sleekit, and indicative of insecurity and a lack of faith in our loved ones. But if you find what you suspoect you will, then of course you stand by your actions. So as a lack of trust in another, and if there is no evidence to justify it, of course it's wrong. But if your suspicions are well-founded , , , , , ?

7) No. But then we make exceptions. I don't accept the modelling one, except where the particular products are aimed specifically at a particular market. So there would have to be narrow bands of justification based upon the specific market: children, women, men, the elderly – but whenever we make an exception, we open the doors for lawyers and the unscrupulous to shove it wide open and pour in.

8) Some of us are a bit like the Moon – we only glow with reflected light, and in the absence of a boy or girlfriend we fade. Self-respect and self-confidence don't come easily to everyone, like assertiveness they can be very fragile. A bad experience can knock them out. I worry about friends who can only have an identity as a girl-friend, wife, or partner and without that Sun to shine on them seem to lose their glow. Surely the causes of this vulnerability are deep inside the psyche and can be not only personal but bolstered by family, social and cultural pressures. If we don't comply with cultural norms and expectations, sometimes even dmenads, we are diminished in the eyes of others and so in our own eyes. We aren't always our own worst enemies but can become complicit and then blame ourselves for not being able to stand alone. Alone can be a very scary place for some people to be!

9) Oh, it's so good to find a book peopled by people in some way like me! Usually fat people, skinny people, and people from ethnic minorities, or with any of the many backgrounds that others use to label them are seen only as peripheral to the story. So from the title on I was drawn into the world of the principal characters and began to feel I was getting to know them. I could attach to them aspects of my own personality and of friends and acquaintances. They were 'real' people and when I finished the book I experienced that loss which comes when you break with people you've grown fond of.

10) NO!