
Such a Pretty Fat
One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pi e Is Not the Answer
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Narrated by:
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Jamie Heinlein
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By:
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Jen Lancaster
About this listen
"To whom the fat rolls...I'm tired of books where a self-loathing heroine is teased to the point where she starves herself skinny in hopes of a fabulous new life. And I hate the message that women can't possibly be happy until we all fit into our skinny jeans. I don't find these stories uplifting; they make me want to hug these women and take them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don't matter. Unfortunately, being overweight isn't simply a societal issue that can be fixed with a dose healthy of positive self-esteem. It's a health matter, and here on the eve of my fortieth year, I've learned I have to make changes so I don't, you know, die. Because what good is finally being able to afford a pedicure if I lose a foot to adult onset diabetes?"
©2008 Jen Lancaster (P)2009 PenguinListeners also enjoyed...
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In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be. Jen Lancaster was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine.
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She Always Makes Me Laugh
- By Debra Garfinkle on 04-01-13
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My Fair Lazy
- One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being a Dumb Ass Is t he New Black, or, a Culture-Up Manifesto
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Readers and listeners have followed Jen Lancaster through job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts, and 1980s nostalgia. Now Jen chronicles her efforts to achieve cultural enlightenment, with some hilarious missteps and genuine moments of inspiration along the way. And she does so by any means necessary: reading canonical literature, viewing classic films, attending the opera, researching artisan cheeses, and even enrolling in etiquette classes to improve her social graces.
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Disappointing ... Both Narration and Story
- By Jennifer on 05-06-12
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Jeneration X
- One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner
- By: Jen Lancaster
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Story
In Such a Pretty Fat, Jen Lancaster learned how to come to terms with her body. In My Fair Lazy, she expanded her mind. Now, the New York Times best-selling author gives herself - and her generation - a kick in the X, by facing her greatest challenge to date: acting her age. Jen is finally ready to put away childish things (except her Barbie Styling Head, of course) and embrace the investment-making, mortgage-carrying, life insurance-having adult she's become.
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Super Jen Lancaster Fans Be Warned...
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Welcome to the United States of Anxiety
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Performance
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Story
Jen Lancaster is here to take a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives. Take a deep breath, and her advice, and you just might get through a holiday dinner without wanting to disown your uncle.
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Not relatable
- By shelly on 11-03-20
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The Tao of Martha
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One would think that with Jen Lancaster’s impressive list of bestselling self-improvement memoirs that she would have it all together by now. One would be wrong. Jen’s still a little rough around the edges. Suffice it to say, she’s no Martha Stewart. And that is exactly why Jen is going to Martha up and live her life according to the advice of America’s overachieving older sister - the woman who turns lemons into lavender-infused lemonade.
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Not as light as previous books, still witty
- By Dogs & Horses on 05-10-15
By: Jen Lancaster
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I Regret Nothing
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Performance
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Story
New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
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The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
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Pretty in Plaid
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- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be. Jen Lancaster was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine.
-
-
She Always Makes Me Laugh
- By Debra Garfinkle on 04-01-13
By: Jen Lancaster
-
My Fair Lazy
- One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being a Dumb Ass Is t he New Black, or, a Culture-Up Manifesto
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jamie Heinlein
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Readers and listeners have followed Jen Lancaster through job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts, and 1980s nostalgia. Now Jen chronicles her efforts to achieve cultural enlightenment, with some hilarious missteps and genuine moments of inspiration along the way. And she does so by any means necessary: reading canonical literature, viewing classic films, attending the opera, researching artisan cheeses, and even enrolling in etiquette classes to improve her social graces.
-
-
Disappointing ... Both Narration and Story
- By Jennifer on 05-06-12
By: Jen Lancaster
-
Jeneration X
- One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Such a Pretty Fat, Jen Lancaster learned how to come to terms with her body. In My Fair Lazy, she expanded her mind. Now, the New York Times best-selling author gives herself - and her generation - a kick in the X, by facing her greatest challenge to date: acting her age. Jen is finally ready to put away childish things (except her Barbie Styling Head, of course) and embrace the investment-making, mortgage-carrying, life insurance-having adult she's become.
-
-
Super Jen Lancaster Fans Be Warned...
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-12
By: Jen Lancaster
-
Welcome to the United States of Anxiety
- Observations from a Reforming Neurotic
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jen Lancaster is here to take a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives. Take a deep breath, and her advice, and you just might get through a holiday dinner without wanting to disown your uncle.
-
-
Not relatable
- By shelly on 11-03-20
By: Jen Lancaster
-
The Tao of Martha
- My Year of LIVING; Or, Why I'm Never Getting All That Glitter Off of the Dog
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One would think that with Jen Lancaster’s impressive list of bestselling self-improvement memoirs that she would have it all together by now. One would be wrong. Jen’s still a little rough around the edges. Suffice it to say, she’s no Martha Stewart. And that is exactly why Jen is going to Martha up and live her life according to the advice of America’s overachieving older sister - the woman who turns lemons into lavender-infused lemonade.
-
-
Not as light as previous books, still witty
- By Dogs & Horses on 05-10-15
By: Jen Lancaster
-
I Regret Nothing
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
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The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
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Housemoms
- A Novel
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
How fast can charity fundraiser CeCe Barclay’s unimpeachable society life come tumbling down? One minute she’s speaking before Chicago’s glitterati. The next, her financier husband is wanted for embezzlement. Her assets seized and her fall mortifyingly public, CeCe grasps for refuge—and employment—as a sorority housemom at Eli Whitney University, her daughter Hayden’s alma mater.
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Had potential, but fell flat
- By Desiree Paulhamus on 01-04-25
By: Jen Lancaster
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Stories I'd Tell in Bars
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- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
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self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
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If You Were Here
- A Novel
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jamie Heinlein
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The fiction debut of the New York Times best-selling author of My Fair Lazy. Told in the uproariously entertaining voice readers have come to expect from Jen Lancaster, If You Were Here follows Amish-zombie-teen- romance author Mia and her husband Mac (and their pets) through the alternately frustrating, exciting, terrifying - but always funny - process of buying and renovating their first home in the Chicago suburbs that John hughes's movies made famous.
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A Jen Lancaster disappointment
- By Carolyn on 10-28-11
By: Jen Lancaster
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The Best of Enemies
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Emily Rankin
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bridesmaids meets Big Little Lies in a novel told from the alternating perspectives of two women who define the term frenemies - from New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster. Jacqueline Jordan knows conflict. A fearless journalist, she’s spent the past decade embedded in the world’s hot spots, writing about the fall of nations and the rise of despots. But if you were to inquire about who topped Jack’s enemy list, she’d not hesitate to answer: Kitty Carricoe.
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Unexpected pleasure with engaging dialgoue
- By Anne A. Kennedy on 09-14-15
By: Jen Lancaster
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By the Numbers
- By: Jen Lancaster
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Actuary Penny Sinclair has a head for business, and she always makes rational decisions. Knowing that 60 percent of spouses cheat and 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, she wasn't too surprised when her husband had an affair. (That he did so with a woman their daughter's age? Well, that part did sting a bit.) She just made sure she got everything in the divorce, including their lovely old Victorian house. And as soon as her younger daughter has her hipster-fabulous wedding in the backyard, she's trading it in for a condo in downtown Chicago....
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Narrator is bland, slow. Story is good.
- By Dogs & Horses on 07-10-16
By: Jen Lancaster
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Let's Pretend This Never Happened
- A Mostly True Memoir
- By: Jenny Lawson
- Narrated by: Jenny Lawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris - Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut. Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives - the ones we'd like to pretend never happened - are in fact the ones that define us. In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor.
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Actually, not for fans of Sedaris and Fey
- By BostonMom on 04-29-12
By: Jenny Lawson
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Broken (in the Best Possible Way)
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken (in the Best Possible Way), Jenny brings listeners along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way. With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it.
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The perfect follow up
- By Anonymous User on 04-07-21
By: Jenny Lawson
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It Was Me All Along
- A Memoir
- By: Andie Mitchell
- Narrated by: Andie Mitchell
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
All her life, Andie Mitchell had eaten lustily and mindlessly. Food was her babysitter, her best friend, her confidant, and it provided a refuge from her fractured family. But when she stepped on the scale on her 20th birthday and it registered a shocking 268 pounds, she knew she had to change the way she thought about food and herself; that her life was at stake.
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Wanted to love this...
- By AndreaJane on 01-16-15
By: Andie Mitchell
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We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
- Essays
- By: Samantha Irby
- Narrated by: Samantha Irby
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Whether Samantha Irby is talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets; explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette; detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes; sharing awkward sexual encounters; or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms (hang in there for the Costco loot!); she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.
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There, But For The Grace Of God
- By Anthony Robertson on 11-20-17
By: Samantha Irby
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Excuse Me While I Disappear
- Tales of Midlife Mayhem
- By: Laurie Notaro
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Laurie Notaro has proved everyone wrong: she didn’t end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair’s root is a symbol of knowledge (she knows how to use a landline), experience (she rode in a car with no seat belts), and superpowers (a gray-haired lady can get away with anything). Though navigating midlife is initially upsetting—the cracking noises coming from her new old body, receiving regular junk mail from mortuaries—Laurie accepts it. And then some.
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Meh. Maybe funnier with a different narrator
- By TK on 12-19-22
By: Laurie Notaro
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I Know What I'm Doing - and Other Lies I Tell Myself
- Dispatches from a Life Under Construction
- By: Jen Kirkman
- Narrated by: Jen Kirkman
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jen Kirkman wants to be the voice in your head that says, "Hey, you're okay. Even if you sometimes think you aren't! And especially if other people try to tell you you're not." In I Know What I'm Doing - and Other Lies I Tell Myself, Jen offers up all the gory details of a life permanently in progress. She reassures you that it's okay to not have life completely figured out, even when you reach middle age (and find your first gray pubic hair!).
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3.25 Stars: If You Have Friends, Or A Sister--
- By Gillian on 04-29-16
By: Jen Kirkman
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Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up
- A Novel
- By: Alexandra Potter
- Narrated by: Sally Phillips
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Meet Nell. Her life is a mess. When her business goes bust and her fiancé with it, Nell's happy ever after in California falls apart and she moves back to London to start over. But a lot has changed since she’s been gone. All her single friends are now married with children, a sky-high real estate market forces her to rent a room in a stranger’s house, and everyone has seemingly perfect Instagram-ready lives. Starting from scratch she feels like a f**k up . . . a forty-something f**k up.
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So Enjoyable! Not Really Like The Show...
- By Kindle Customer on 09-20-23
By: Alexandra Potter
What listeners say about Such a Pretty Fat
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- Patty S.
- 07-26-16
Love, Love, Love
By far the best book I've read/ listened to in a long, long time. Author is witty and comically sarcastic.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Edna L. Eudave-jones
- 07-23-21
funny but sometime a bit much
it took me a bit to get through this book because some of the hatred and white privilege was a but much a times...hilarious other times. There were times the author was blatantly racist and just really needed to find a little peace in her life. The anger can be a bit much
I was hoping it ended with a little heart...but her overly white republican privilege really showed...and no heart was to be found.
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Overall
- Susie Buzan
- 06-13-10
Everything I always wanted to say about fat
This was an extremely funny, yet edgy book nailing the feelings every woman has about the struggle of losing weight. As the reader, Ms. Lancaster's cutting, sarcastic, and ironic style is just what the book needs. I listened to it in the car, and occasionally had to pull over as tears of laughter were running down my face. It's a book I will definitely listen to again.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Rachel
- 03-31-11
Love!
I loved this book. The narrator is fabulous, the book is funny, fast paced, and truthful. Great listen.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- KismetKat11
- 08-04-11
Always a fun time!
This is my third Jen Lancaster book and I'm still entertained! I thought it was great to hear about the struggles of weight loss (been there, down 30 pounds and hovering) and it was actually pretty inspiring. The only gripe I have about the narration, is the consistent mispronunciation of words: "Re:" is not pronounced "Ray". "Re:" is "in response to" or "in regard to", so should be pronounced "Ree". Also, she should check her pronunciation of "chorizo". The "i" is pronounced as "ee", not "eye" or "ih". I know this sounds really petty, but it was so odd considering what a perfectionist I thought Jen Lancaster was to have the narrator mispronounce these things.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Kelly
- 08-17-12
An honest portrayal of dieting and weight loss
As someone who has been to the diet rodeo several times in the past few years, I relate so much to "Such a Pretty Fat". I've read it a few times but recently decided to listen to it because I've been struggling to continue losing weight and I thought it would give me the motivation to keep going. Happily, I was right. My experiences with WW meetings mirror Jen's and I laughed the hardest at the characters she encountered - people who are afraid of office birthday cakes are everywhere! This book is an honest look at the various diet programs out there (Jen tries Atkins, Jenny Craig, and WW) and the day-to-day struggle involved in losing weight.
Jamie Heinlein is a great narrator. She has Jen's snarky undertones down pat and I love that she doesn't try to put on a male voice for Fletch. Thanks to her, I enjoyed listening to this even more than I've enjoyed reading it in the past.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Elizabeth Nelson
- 08-26-19
Not funny
I know she was trying to come off as sassy and funny, but she came across as just a self centered jerk.
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- Kimberlykate
- 01-31-12
Small bites help
Jen Lancaster is funny, pithy and deliciously wicked..in small bites. Her endless ranting becomes a bit grating if you listen to it like a piece of fiction. I tend to think of her as my neurotic friend that is occasionally so funny she makes me shoot latte out of my nose, but the rest of the time she whines and complains incessantly.
All three of her memoirs tend to read like a late night comedic monologue, and are best absorbed and enjoyed in three minute increments.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Dianna Sandora
- 07-13-16
Chunky girl steps up.
I loved this book! I do want to warn you there is a considerable amount of cursing, but who hasn't cussed while trying to lose weight? Listening to Jen's journey encouraged me to step up and take responsibility for what I eat and my activity. I joined Weight Watchers cause I tried them once before and was successful. (Hey Jen did they pay you for plugging them?) As an author myself I appreciate Jen's style! I'm certain I'll be checking out more of her books.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jeannie
- 09-18-12
A light listen
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
This book was a fun listen in the car. It wouldn't be my first pick but if you like lighter books this should fill your listening time.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
I liked the funny stories about dieting. If you never had to diet you shouldn't listen to this story, you won't relate.
Did Jamie Heinlein do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
The narrator did a good job.
Did Such a Pretty Fat inspire you to do anything?
I'd love to say that I jumped on the diet band wagon after listening this. But it got me thinking about it.
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