This excellent anthology is a mix of poetry, prose, fiction, and non-fiction by a wonderfully diverse group of voices sharing and exploring their experiences with the intersectionality of queerness and fatness or trans and fatness.

Like any anthology, some pieces connected with me on a deeper level than others, though, each piece made me think, and many pieces gave me an entirely new perspective on an area in which I'd honestly put very little though before.

"Last month I was in a public space, meaning, I was in a space that left my body vulnerable to the interpretations of those around me and their responses."

"In both of these childhood experiences, I chose to wear something that I felt really good in [...]. And both times, my choices resulted in shame."

I felt the full gamut of emotions reading these powerful and undeniably authentic experiences, and am so glad I picked this up. I did, however, read it in doses, as quite often the feelings of anger and sadness were enough that I would put it down to reflect and digest before moving on to another piece.

This is definitely an anthology for anyone looking to understand this intersection better, anyone looking to learn about it for the time, or for anyone queer/trans/fat who may be looking to find even small pieces of themselves described by the incredible community in these stories.

*I received this ARC from NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

I don't think this was the book for me. I think that for a lot of people, this will be perfect. I am myself plus sized (I am one of those who really really don't like the word fat and hate that the current activism seems to embrace it) and thus thought I'd give it a try. I could relate to some of the stories in here but ultimately, I had the same issues that I have with the current activism, which is seeing obesity as something to celebrate. I am all for thin people shutting up and letting us be, but I am also all for us plus sized people supporting each other to get to a healthy weight. Not for aesthetic reasons. But for health reasons. I guess I went into this book with the wrong mindset. That being said, I think I am in the minority. So it really is me in this case and not the book itself.

Interesting book. I enjoyed "browsing" around this book. It was nice to see other people like me in a book.

Fat and Queer was an educational and necessary anthology of amazing fat and queer, and fat and trans voices. Every contribution was incredibly meaningful and delved into important parts of queerness and fatness that may not be known by people not in those communities.

The essays and poems were well spaced throughout the book and multiple perspectives on the same topic (e.g. the gaining community) were all very insightful. As a fat woman, I can relate to some of the stories told and the feelings, and reading their stories and journies of self-love and acceptance was beautiful.

I applaud each and every writer in this novel for their bravery in sharing their stories in hope of empowering others who felt as they have and some who still continue on that journey to accepting themselves as they are.

I would highly recommend this book to fat, fat and queer, and fat and trans people, and anyone else with an open mind for understanding and learning about a fearless group of people.

If you are looking for any of these five things in your next read, consider giving this book a try:
- Own Voices
- Body positivity
- Intersectional
- Challenging society and society-bred thoughts
- A wide range of personal perspectives and experiences

Overall, I was glad that I was given the chance to review this book on NetGalley. I'm always looking for new queer voices to read from and this anthology did a great job of opening my eyes to a whole other subset of the queer community that needs some love and support. There's nothing more empowering than listening to people discover their own power, even as they continue to sit with questions and confusions. All the contributing authors were brave and honest, a testament to their skills. I would definitely read more put together by these editors!

“I felt guilty for existing in a world that didn’t want me”

Fat and Queer is anthology containing a collection of story stories and poetry about what it’s like to be both fat and queer in society.

While I definitely enjoyed and related to some stories more than others, overall I loved this entire collection. There are some truly beautiful stories, and I found myself highlighting entire sections to return to.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This anthology combined so many voices that are not normally given a place to be heard. It gave life to a wide variety of experiences and there were definitely insights I will carry with me, particularly 'About my Breasts, Since you Asked' by Sherre Vernon. I'm not typically one for poetry but I really enjoyed the writing in this piece which was sort of halfway between poetry and prose.

I would recommend for individuals who are fat, queer, both, or neither as there is value in these words for everyone.

Wow this anthology touched on so many struggles and personal experiences that I connected with on a personal level. I really wish I had a book like this when I was younger and I feel like many people will find a little piece of themselves in this. Its always hard for me to rate anthology's but this is a easy 5 from me. I'm super grateful for the voice that this gives to so many people and so thankful to the many courageous people that contributed to this and shared their stories.

This is a stunning anthology with an incredibly diverse mix of writers and voices! This collection challenged head on societal misconceptions and misrepresentations of fat bodies and queer stories, and it felt liberating to read these OwnVoices stories. The anthology really succeeded in preventing the many struggles and the many joys tied into the intersection of fatness and queerness. These stories were lovely, personal, fierce, and raw. I hope to see many more anthologies like this one someday.

Thank you to Netgalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for an arc of this book.

This anthology combines a myriad of fat and queer voices to tell stories about the intersection of life when one is both fat and queer. There are many voices represented in this book and they express their stories in different ways: essays, poetry, stories.

I really enjoyed the diversity of voices represented throughout this anthology. Not only people with different queer identities, but also different races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and reasons for being fat. This book made me think about a lot of things I have never really considered about myself and how my fat and queer body interacts with the world. I feel like I learned a great deal from reading this book.

The only thing that bothered me was that similar voices seemed to be grouped together so that it felt like I was reading very similar essays all right in a row. I think I would have enjoyed it more if these similar topics were more spread out throughout the anthology.

Pub Date: May 21, 2021

Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Transphobia

Fat and Queer is a very difficult book for me to review. I LOVED parts of this book, while others were pretty metaphorical and went a little over my head. I really appreciated the longer stories where I was able to get a more well-rounded understanding of the author, but that is only due to personal preference. Getting a well-rounded understanding of the author was not the purpose of every piece.
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I learned a LOT from this book. It did an incredible job representing many aspects of queerness and the intersection between weight, gender, sexual orientation, race, ability, and more. I also loved that it was one of the first things I've ever read that discussed the fact that many people like their fat bodies.
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I read this book because the intersection of fatness and queerness is something I have been very interested in exploring. I have never really been a fan of short stories, essays, or prose, so if those are your jam, you will love this book and I highly recommend it.

TW// Fatphobia, Homophobia and Homophobic Slurs, Drug Use, Mentions of Rape

CW// Slightly Explicit Sex Scenes, Talk of Suicide, Self-Harm, Eating Disorders

Wow. This is the book I never knew I needed. Fat and Queer is an intimate collection of personal stories and poems, an ode to fat and queer people all over the world. So many different writings and ways to express oneself came together in this book, all united in feeling of being both a fat and queer person. This book one hundred percent succeeded in its aim to empower and inspire self-love in all who read it and share this particular experience.

There were so many different pieces of writing to love and different things to love about each piece, but I managed to narrow it down to my favourites, ones that made my heart seize with the amount of love I had for fat queer bodies, bodies that looked like mine:

-Faithful Food by Ruth Gibbs, a poem which depicts fat women as exquisite holy beings, women who ‘’walk with the goddesses.’’

-seven nights of noodles by Jay Audrey, who writes that their partner ‘’held my round woman hips and thanked me for my abundance’’ and pointed out that ‘’my stomach rolls like Aphrodite’s’’.

-Cherry Popsicle by Jay Audrey, a poem that expresses how sensual an experience it is to see a beautiful fat person eat a cherry popsicle, ‘’cherry juice drips on her skin,’’ ‘’she is all red and sticky and sweet.’’

-cantaloupe season by LJ Sitler, a poem that makes beautiful the love that a fat person has for food, and how that fat person is still absolutely worthy of love from their partner. ‘’My lover feeds me musty cantaloupe in bed after fucking,’’ ‘’I am warm, I am sated, I am full,’’ ‘’We are together.’’

-Legacy by Miguel M. Morales, an ode to all the fat and queer activists of the past who protested for our right to be worthy and respected like anyone else.

”Essentially, my fatness sometimes betrays me, and allows others to misgender me”
-Alyssah Roth, ‘Incorrect Attribution: A Collision of Fatness and Gender’

Aside from loving this book because it speaks love and praise to my fat queer soul, it also draws my attention to the particular intersection of being fat and queer. In The Gender Non-Conformity of my Fatness, Caleb Luna defines being in a public space as being ‘’in a space that left my body vulnerable to the interpretations of those around me and their responses.’’ Luna identifies with the title of man, however, because of their fat body, in the public eye he is seen as less ‘manly’ that those with the ‘masculine’ features of hard muscles and toned abs. They explain that this is because fatness is seen as inherently feminine, and so a fat, nonbinary or genderqueer person will essentially be seen as female or at least more feminine in a public space. Reading about Luna’s experience made me think about my own. Being a genderqueer person, people are naturally going to find it hard to refer to me as genderqueer and use my correct pronouns. But because I’m also fat, it’s going to be even more difficult, as my fat body somehow represents femininity. In the eyes of the public, thinness equals androgyny, and androgyny equals nonbinary. Because we don’t have thin bodies and are not androgynous presenting, people like Caleb Luna and I will not be held to the same standard of nonbinary or genderqueer as other thin nonbinary people. I never thought much about this issue until it was brought up in this anthology. Drawing attention to it also gives non-fat queer people the chance to realise they are privileged just for being thin.

”I want people to know that the size of my body isn’t an accident. I am in control of this. Being fat is what I want.”
-Bruce Owens Grimm, ‘Dropping Fictions and Gaining Visibility’

While the pleasure of reading is a gift in itself, nothing brings me more joy than reading a book that gives me knowledge, in this case, a new way to see fat queer bodies. The concept of ‘gaining’ is one I was not familiar with until I read this anthology. Reading how Bruce Owens Grimm loved his fat body so much he was happy to gain as much weight as he wanted was such an enlightening perspective to see. I feel like gaining is a system of further liberation for the gainers in terms of their fat bodies, taking self-love to another level. It was such an illuminating experience to be able to read about.

This book was written very well, I had two minor problems, however: a few typos made some sentences hard to understand (but they could be fixed with just a little more editing), and the lack of trigger and content warnings. There were a lot of dark topics mentioned in some pieces, and there were no warnings given at all. I would suggest that the appropriate warnings be given at the start of each new piece.

Overall, this anthology is most definitely worth a read. I would like to say, to any fat queer people who feel like they aren’t worthy of being loved and respected, I gift you this book, in the hope that as you turn the last page, you yourself will open on a new chapter in your life, one where you’re full of love for yourself, your queerness, and your beautiful fat body.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

FAT AND QUEER is such a necessary book! Like the editors mentioned, calling yourself "fat" can be harder than coming out. The range of essays and poetry is excellent. The ranger of genders and their intersections with body size are particularly informative (and needed). The issues each author grapple with are complex and deeply rooted, both in individuals as well as our culture. I'm recommending this to all of my students and will *absolutely* be using it in my creative non-fiction classes.

I loved this so much, will probably reread it again at some point it was that. Being queer and Fat myself this book just speaks to me, it was really well written. Never read anything in prose before but I definitely didn’t mind it, I have a new fondness for poetry too. Over all I would recommend it for sure!

ARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

As with all anthologies, this collection had some pieces I loved, and some not so much. Either way, I loved that each piece was in some way about coming to love our fat and queer bodies, despite not liking one authors comparison of coming out as a "gainer" to coming out as queer, I enjoyed exploring these intersections, especially as a fat queer man, and especially enjoyed the discussions of how in the gay community, masculinity is a kind of currency, and fat does not equal masculine, so it is a strike against you in an already limiting world. A lot of these pieces really resonated and this is clearly a very important collection.

ARC provided by Netgalley, thank you so much!
CW for: fatphobia, eating disorders, drug and substance use, alcohol, homophobia, sexual assault. Please avoid this book if you are not comfortable with these topics.
We’re here
We’re queer
We’re fat
Fat and Queer is the second anthology I have read this year, and it is one of the best. Not only does it celebrate the LGBTQIAP+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (or Questioning), Intersex, Asexual, Pansexual+) community, body positivity is a massive theme as well.
The stories in this anthology are so pure and relatable (queeeer for life y’all) and I sincerely enjoyed reading every single one of them, even the introductions.
Every author's writing was so... lovely and poetic. I would love to read more by these authors and if they come out with anything else, even if it is a tiny, one-page grocery list, I would read it. I loved this that much.

it's hard to deal with being gay or obese or being different from the mainstream, but being both, in this world that still not fully understands and excepts everyone it's much difficult. everyone in this book is a hero from my point of view. to admit your struggles and imperfections not only to yourself but in a book you need to have courage.
I thought it will be more inspiring for me as an obese straight woman but I often felt that it speaks to gay more than to obese.

Fat and Queer seemed like a book that was meant for me. I am fat and queer, and I thought it would be a perfect read, but oh boy, did it fall flat for me. I found the stories not well written and all over the place, the only story I enjoyed was the very first one.
There were a lot of poems, which I didn't expect, and I know poetry is not made for me as I do not enjoy it, I tried to see the enjoyment of poetry while reading them, but couldn't find anything I liked.
I did find some parts of it a little triggering for myself as I was a fat kid, and there is talk about that, there should be at least some content warnings with this book for our fat friends.
Overall, I didn't enjoy this book. I am not sure if it was the wrong time for me to read it, or if it was the content, but it didn't live up to what I thought it would be.
2/5 stars.

I really loved this collection. The essays and stories were really well written and even when I couldn't relate they were still emotional and informative. The poetry broke my heart into tiny pieces just about every time.

Fat and Queer by Bruce Owens Grimm, Miguel M Morales and Tiff Joshua T J Ferentini – Publishing 21 May 21
I would like to thank, firstly, Netgalley and the author and publisher for trusting me with an advanced reader’s copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This one-of-a-kind collection of prose and poetry radically explores the intersection of fat and queer identities, showcasing new, emerging, and established queer and trans writers from around the world. Celebrating fat and queer bodies and lives, this book challenges negative and damaging representations of queer and fat bodies and offers readers ways to reclaim their bodies, providing stories of support, inspiration, and empowerment.

I enjoyed this anthology greatly. I was so interesting to hear from other people who have bravely let us into their lives for a little while. Some of the stories were a bit hard-hitting and possibly a warning should be involved around that area, maybe at the beginning. This, however, did not detract from the beautiful writing. This brings us fat and queer folk a sense of belonging and not fighting these issues at home. I would highly recommend this book to anyone as it can inspire and give confidence to those people hiding behind their doors because they are too “fat-shamed” to go outside.

Easiest 5 Star review I have ever given.