Reader Score
71%
71% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Good
Based on 8 reviews on
Sarai Walker is the author of the novel Dietland, which has been published in more than a dozen countries and adapted as a television series for AMC. She has lectured on feminism and body image internationally, and has spoken about these topics widely in the media. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and elsewhere, and she worked as a writer and editor on an updated version of Our Bodies, Ourselves. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College and a PhD in English from the University of London. She lives in Philadelphia.
An Amazon Top 100 Editors' Pick of the Year One of Entertainment Weekly's "10 Best Books of 2015" One of Bustle's "2015's 25 Best Books, Fiction Edition" A New York Post "Best Novel to Read This Summer" An Us Weekly "Hot Summer Novel" O, The Oprah Magazine, "10 Titles to Pick Up Now" A USA Today "New and Noteworthy" Book One of Vulture's "8 Books You Need to Read This May" A Kirkus "Best Fiction of 2015" Title One of BookPage's "Best Books of 2015" One of Kobo.com's "Must Read Fiction Debuts of 2015" A LitReactor Staff Pick: The Best Books of 2015 One of New York Daily News's "10 Books for Your Summer Reading List" Women's National Book Association, "Great Group Reads 2015" An Indie Next Pick "Dietland completely blew me away. It's audacious and gutsy and heartbreaking and I want to grab women on the street and shake them until they promise to read it--and also buy copies for their daughters." --Jennifer Weiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good In Bed, In Her Shoes, and others "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, One of Vulture's "8 Books You Need to Read This May" "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."--Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A) "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."--O, The Oprah Magazine, One of "10 Titles to Pick Up Now" "A delightful, page-turning thriller that's also a feminist revenge fantasy. I tore through it in about two days--it is amazingly accessible while still being whip-smart, and it deals with timely issues without feeling like a lame Law & Order 'ripped from the headlines' stunt."----Jessica Grose, Lenny Letter "[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."--The Economist "At 300 lbs., Plu --