Life in the Fat Lane (novel)
Life in the Fat Lane is a novel for young adults written by Cherie Bennett. The novel was included among the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. It was published in 1998 by Delacorte Press. In 2000, the novel won the Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List. The novel is included in "The Big Book of Teen Reading Lists", a composed list of inspirational fiction and non-fiction titles divided by age levels. Cherie Bennett obtained the idea of the novel from her readers because she writes about real life issues many  young girls are affected by. The novel reflects a girl living in a perfect world. She suddenly faces a traumatic disease which cause her to gain over 100 pounds in only a few months, with no cure, and her whole world turns upside down. Cherie Bennett was commissioned to write a theatrical adaptation of "Life in the Fat Lane" by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The play won the Lazarus-Macy New Play Award. Plot. The novel's main character is Lara Ardeche. According to Lara, her family life is perfect because her parents are youthful, beautiful, and involve  themselves in every aspect of her and her brother's lives. She is elected homecoming queen for her high school, following in her mother's footsteps, and she is her father's "princess". Each morning is a daily routine of waking up in a glamorous home, eating a healthy but delicious home-cooked meal, and working out in her home gym given to the family by their wealthy grandpa. Her best friend Molly is the complete opposite. She is overweight, her family life is a wreck, and her nickname is "the Mouth", but she has a sarcastic sense of humor  in spite of all this. Shortly before winning Homecoming Queen, Lara takes pity on an obese classmate named Patty Asher and offers to help her lose weight. Soon after, Lara notices that she slowly but steadily gains weight, no matter how much she works out, diets, or even starves herself. Her thin and perfect mother begs Lara to do anything she can to keep the weight off and her father eventually stops calling her "princess". Every one of Lara's so-called friends abandons her, except for Molly and Lara's boyfriend Jett. Within months, Lara gains 100 pounds. After  seeking over fifty medical doctors, she is diagnosed with a rare and incurable metabolic disorder called "Axell-Crowne" syndrome. Patty pops up and visits Lara shortly before her diagnosis, happily gloating about the fact Lara has gained a massive amount of weight and is now fatter than her. Even Lara's former friends now openly gloat about her weight gain. Her relationship with Jett begins to deteriorate, along with her entire family's relationship, once Lara's dad announces that he is having an affair. In order to try to hold up the last strings of the family, the Ardeches  move to Michigan from Nashville to begin a new start, but Lara is having an even harder time at this high school. People refer to the once 118 pound girl as the "obese girl" and nobody believes that she truly has a rare but severe disease. Her home life becomes more chaotic, with her father making it painfully obvious he is still cheating on his wife, and her mother's desperate attempts to keep her husband. This leads to a nasty confrontation between Lara and her mother, revealing that her father has been seeing his other woman for three years , long before Lara gained weight, crushing her assumption he is cheating on his wife because of her. She begins to view her mother as pathetic and her father as philandering, adopting her brother Scott's views (this explains the intense relationship between father and son early in the novel, with Scott discovering the affair all those years ago). After breaking up with Jett, Lara finds her life in complete and utter turmoil. Lara begins taking piano classes in her new home to occupy her boredom and is introduced to a new group of friends. She finds that they are some  of the most genuine people she's ever met, and do not use looks as a means of creating friendships. In particular, one of these friends is a blind boy who appreciates Lara for her true self. As a result, Lara begins accepting herself and believing in who she is. However, she feels somewhat conflicted with her past self, with Jett returning and begging for Lara to take him back. Despite being confused about her feelings towards her past, she has different perceptions on what relationships need to have in order to sustain. Although the weight is slowly coming off , Lara finally realizes a thin body is not the key to happiness. The novel concludes with Lara being temporarily reunited with Molly and telling the reader that, while her life is not perfect like it used to be, she is perfectly fine with this. Reception. "Life in the Fat Lane" has received many positive reviews by "Publishers Weekly", Amazon Books, and Good Reads. "Publishers Weekly" said, "Reading this often artificial novel for insight into [issues of weight, self-image and beauty] is a little like eating peanut M&M's for the protein, but it's a similarly addictive experience". According  to the Children's BookPage Review, "Bennett accurately portrays Lara's struggles to deal with her imperfect life and the many compounding family problems she had been too self-absorbed to notice before her weight problem. She battles self-hatred, learns who her true friends are, feels her father's embarrassment and denial of her disorder, and faces prejudice as an overweight person". Annotated by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre from the Literature, Arts, and Medicine database, "It's a useful book for looking at fat as a social issue, a family issue, and a problem that bears reframing". According to an  anonymous reviewer, he believes ""Life in the Fat Lane" is a life-inspiring book. It deals with real life problems and things kids and adults go through everyday. This is a book of slow pace but has a wild ride of events during this book. I recommend this book to the young adults but mostly to girls. Girls can relate to the character Lara to help them understand the story well". On the other side, there is a small percentage of critics that negatively reviewed the novel. Book reviewer, Theresa McAdams, believes "There was no humor, no irony, and really  no message at all. I really don't like the idea of teenage girls reading this book, because either way I think this book could actually egg on the stereotype that girls are only valuable if they are thin".