Dietland (Walker) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
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


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. (Grade A.)
Entertainment Weekly


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.
Oprah Magazine


[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.
Economist


At 300 lbs., Plum Kettle lives for the days when gastric bypass will help her shed her extra girth—until she's challenged to shed her misery instead. Witty and wise.
People


Sarai Walker deftly marries body insecurities and humor in her satirical debut. At 300 pounds, Plum declares a diet fail and concedes to weight-loss surgery. But when she meets a radical feminist, she begins to try on confidence for size.
US Weekly


[Dietland’s] message resonates…It’s vanishingly rare to see a novel that looks like the much-maligned "chick lit"—and sometimes reads like it—so gleefully censorious of rape culture… If you’ve lived in this culture—if you’ve ever been a young woman who is trying to eat so little or eat so much that she disappears…you may take some cold comfort from Dietland, and its opportunities for vicarious revenge.
Guardian (UK)


In a confident, daring first novel, Sarai Walker mixes satire and mystery as she holds a magnifying glass over Western culture's objectification of the female gender. The result is combustion of enormously entertaining and thought-provoking proportion...Walker's brazen approach to Dietland carries a strength that will ignite readers' passionate responses. The novel is unflinchingly blunt, depicting raw emotion and uncomfortable realities. Walker writes beautifully, with natural dialogue and powerful characters. Her first-rate entrance into fiction is sure to spark the conversation she--and Plum--feel their audience needs to have."
Shelf Awareness


(Starred review.) Plum Kettle likes living under the radar—pretty hard to do when you're 300 pounds or so.... 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. —Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY
Library Journal


Through her protagonist, debut novelist Walker gives a plaintive yet powerful voice to anyone who has struggled with body image, feelings of marginalization, and sexual manipulation. Her robust satire also vibrantly redefines what it means to be a woman in contemporary society.
Booklist


(Starred review.) 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.... Part Fight Club, part feminist manifesto, an offbeat and genre-bending novel that aims high—and delivers.
Kirkus Reviews