Fat Trope 2.5: Hot Guy Dangerīefore he can save her however, for much of the story, in many of these romances, the hot guy introduces danger into the heroine’s life. Intentional or not, this is how the happy ending occurs in the course of events. That, ironically, reinforces social hierarchy and affirms damaging conventional beauty standards. Ultimately, his status affirms and bolsters hers. Lucy fixates on his form, and so does the text as a whole. Frankie’s physicality is central to his character.
Fat Trope 2: The Hot Guy SaviorĪs successful as she is in other ways, the heroine is saved from this relentless insecurity by the love of a conventionally attractive man, the kind society values. This trope plays out similarly in Take Me by Bella Andre and Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein. Flynn tells this story well, and it is engaging, but the relentless focus on Lucy’s insecurities was jarring. These misunderstandings flow directly from Lucy’s disbelief and insecurity about her perceived worth as a romantic partner.īecause of this, I had a hard time with this book. The dreaded miscommunication trope also comes into play more than once. Lucy dismisses Frankie’s feelings as a joke, a trick, or an accident of circumstance, something brought on by close proximity. Frankie treats her well, and it causes no end of wonder and confusion.
Frankie communicates his attraction to and respect for Lucy at every turn, but Lucy has great difficulty registering it. Once Frankie and Lucy team up, the central conflict revolves around the fat heroine’s fragile sense of self and her inability to believe that a beautiful man could ever be attracted to let alone love her, even though he clearly does. The relationship could be real if only Lucy liked herself more. It turns Lucy into the problem rather than the heroine of the story. Rather than light and frothy, the fake dating setup can be really problematic in fat representation. Much of the trouble starts with the fake dating trope. Fat Trope 1: Making The Fat Heroine’s Insecurity The Central Problem With that in mind, here are are few fat tropes I think we’d be better off without. None of that however, makes up for the book’s central sin, indulging in fat loathing and calling it social realism. As a result, Muffin Top reads as genuinely sex positive in a healthy way. This scene helps us understand who they are, how they relate to each other, and how their chemistry evolves. The text explicitly discusses the ways that society makes life difficult for larger sized people.Īuthor Avery Flynn is particularly good at creating a credible dialog between Lucy and Frankie with regard to sex and sexuality and their physical relationship. Lucy is also unable to fit comfortably in airline seats and therefore chooses to drive across country. I found it notable that this heroine was larger than other main characters who are categorized as fat or curvy. This story was better than many others in its openness about Lucy’s size and the impact it has.
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