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carleesi's review
I couldn’t keep reading the hatred and disgust Kris uses to frame their body in the early chapters. I was hoping for more fat neutrality if not fat positivity but this was too much like giving my brain a manual for ways to hate my fat body which I refuse to do.
I hope it switches as the book goes on, but I’ve spent enough of my life reading/ learning about the horribly ways people view fat bodies and I don’t need to see it anymore.
I hope this helps straight sized people be less shitty!
I hope it switches as the book goes on, but I’ve spent enough of my life reading/ learning about the horribly ways people view fat bodies and I don’t need to see it anymore.
I hope this helps straight sized people be less shitty!
roxyc's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming
Minor: Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Bullying
tklassy's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, and Body shaming
nickikendall's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
relaxing
3.0
Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. This memoir was written in short bite size chapters. It was a poignant, confronting and thought provoking read that was everything you would ever want in a memoir. An honest portrayal of Kneen's experiences as an overweight, queer person and coming to terms with how some people in society view/judge overweight people and how they along with their partner love and appreciate every part of the body they are in. I found the Burlesque dancing to also be an empowering and confidence boosting idea of how we can all learn to embrace the bodies we and others have and to admire and appreciate them accordingly, instead of looking at them with judgement. #kriskneen #fatgirldancing #netgalley #goodreads #tea_sipping_bookworm #getlitsy #thestorygraph #memoir #fat #bookqueen #bookstagram
textpublishing's review
The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Fat Girl Dancing
‘With characteristic Kneen heart and originality we are invited into a lifetime hunger for disappearance, a pursuit of love, and moments of perfection. Iconically queer and questioning, with a bobbing cork of generosity. A pleasure to hold.’
Kaya Wilson
‘A prism of a book, relighting the world around us, page by page.’
Chloe Hooper
‘Muscular, dexterous, and superbly inventive, Fat Girl Dancing is an extraordinary investigation - and expression - of the self.’
Sarah Krasnostein
‘Insightful and poetic, Fat Girl Dancing is a triumph. I am better for having read it, perhaps even a little more human. This book may be Kneen's specific story, but it is for every mind and every body.’
Bri Lee
‘If a book is the best kind of invitation to try on a different life for size, this one insists that readers take up that invitation completely and intimately. A story of love that questions perceptions and presumptions, Kris Kneen’s Fat Girl Dancing deconstructs how one person sees themselves and sees the world – and their sense of how the world sees them – with gentle heart, unflinching introspection and lyrical ferocity. Exquisitely shaped and personally provocative, it balances a reality of no easy answers with an experience of ultimate transcendence.’
Ashley Hay
‘Kris Kneen has a rare talent for tackling taboo subjects. Again and again, they’ve spoken the unspeakable, dug into the hidden parts of ourselves with a tender and unflinching gaze. In Fat Girl Dancing, Kneen brings that talent to bear on fatness, a topic still drenched in shame and stigma. The result is a raw yet lyrical memoir that sits with the ambivalences of living in a fat body in a deeply fatphobic world. This is not a trauma memoir, nor is it fat activism; it’s a fearless documentation of the realities of Othered embodiment. Like all the best life writing, Fat Girl Dancing is at once deeply specific and broadly resonant. On each page, Kneen breathes poetry into the pain of having the “wrong" body—a pain so many of us have shared.’
Yves Rees
‘Visceral and transportive, Fat Girl Dancing is a triumph of story telling, at once sharp and compassionate, critical yet subjective. In this wildly creative memoir, the body is explored in all its richness, controversy and taboo. This is Kneen at their finest.’
Mirandi Riwoe
‘Equally sumptuous as it is heartbreaking, Fat Girl Dancing evokes the sweaty, dreamy, beautiful nightmare of living in a body that the culture at large rejects. Kneen puts it all out there: flesh, insecurity and art, and in doing so creating a work of corporeal neutrality and—most importantly—uncompromising sexiness’
Eloise Grills
‘Brave, visceral and original. An unsettling look at bodies in all their frailty...’
Kristina Olsson
‘We all have monsters that lurk in the dark - cruel little voices that shame us from the shadows. What might happen if we dared to set them loose? If we dared to set ourselves loose? Fat Girl Dancing is the answer. Kris Kneen has written the book of their body, and - like their body - it refuses to be pinned. This book is wounded, exultant and magnificently alive.’
Beejay Silcox
‘This is an enthralling and bold self-portrait. Kneen faces the mirror and the body and the world with an unflinching, generous gaze. Her courage and clarity are, of course, absolutely vital to the book’s power, but what makes this memoir really soar is the beauty and precision of her writing. Passionate, honest—a superb book from one of our best writers.’
Christos Tsiolkas
‘[Fat Girl Dancing is] more than a memoir – it is a self-portrait, expressing both the self over time in their words, and their body as a still in photos and paintings. This is a deliciously queer book in Kneen’s astute consideration of othered bodies and what it means to fall outside white, heterosexual standards of beauty.’
Clare Millar, Readings
‘A masterpiece of introspective corporeality…Kneen’s sensual prose unpacks problems with seeing fatness as being situated within bodies as opposed to contexts…Fat Girl Dancing is an achingly honest memoir about writing the body, with poignant poetic emphasis on artistic expression, performing femininity and rebelliously refusing to languish…Kneen’s journey will resonate deeply with those whose worlds don’t always fit, people who sparkle blue with joy, and those who know how it feels to experience a non-Euclidean selfhood.’
Nanci Nott, ArtsHub
‘Kris Kneen’s Fat Girl Dancing is a series of attempts by the author to really see themself…Their dedication to throwing themself into a pursuit is commendable, and the crushing disappointment of that pursuit not being a good fit feels familiar…Fat Girl Dancing [helps] build the Australian voice in this essential conversation about which bodies deserve respect and when – that is, all of them, and always.’
Sam van Zweden, Age/SMH
‘A potent mix of emotional vulnerability and intellectual acuity…Poignant, enraging, heartbreaking…In this triumphant act they not only reveal their body, they also reveal their heart. And, amid the sequins and feathers, what a sparkling thing it is.’
Monthly
‘Not uniformly positive, but contains a good quote: ‘candid, unflinching, and exquisitely written.’
Australian Book Review
‘The book, like Anthony Mullins’ exquisite photographs of Kneen’s naked curves...resists being seen one way. It invites interpretation. And it asks the reader to conceive a whole from its series of beautifully composed parts, bringing their own experiences and projections to bear on it.’
InReview
‘With characteristic Kneen heart and originality we are invited into a lifetime hunger for disappearance, a pursuit of love, and moments of perfection. Iconically queer and questioning, with a bobbing cork of generosity. A pleasure to hold.’
Kaya Wilson
‘A prism of a book, relighting the world around us, page by page.’
Chloe Hooper
‘Muscular, dexterous, and superbly inventive, Fat Girl Dancing is an extraordinary investigation - and expression - of the self.’
Sarah Krasnostein
‘Insightful and poetic, Fat Girl Dancing is a triumph. I am better for having read it, perhaps even a little more human. This book may be Kneen's specific story, but it is for every mind and every body.’
Bri Lee
‘If a book is the best kind of invitation to try on a different life for size, this one insists that readers take up that invitation completely and intimately. A story of love that questions perceptions and presumptions, Kris Kneen’s Fat Girl Dancing deconstructs how one person sees themselves and sees the world – and their sense of how the world sees them – with gentle heart, unflinching introspection and lyrical ferocity. Exquisitely shaped and personally provocative, it balances a reality of no easy answers with an experience of ultimate transcendence.’
Ashley Hay
‘Kris Kneen has a rare talent for tackling taboo subjects. Again and again, they’ve spoken the unspeakable, dug into the hidden parts of ourselves with a tender and unflinching gaze. In Fat Girl Dancing, Kneen brings that talent to bear on fatness, a topic still drenched in shame and stigma. The result is a raw yet lyrical memoir that sits with the ambivalences of living in a fat body in a deeply fatphobic world. This is not a trauma memoir, nor is it fat activism; it’s a fearless documentation of the realities of Othered embodiment. Like all the best life writing, Fat Girl Dancing is at once deeply specific and broadly resonant. On each page, Kneen breathes poetry into the pain of having the “wrong" body—a pain so many of us have shared.’
Yves Rees
‘Visceral and transportive, Fat Girl Dancing is a triumph of story telling, at once sharp and compassionate, critical yet subjective. In this wildly creative memoir, the body is explored in all its richness, controversy and taboo. This is Kneen at their finest.’
Mirandi Riwoe
‘Equally sumptuous as it is heartbreaking, Fat Girl Dancing evokes the sweaty, dreamy, beautiful nightmare of living in a body that the culture at large rejects. Kneen puts it all out there: flesh, insecurity and art, and in doing so creating a work of corporeal neutrality and—most importantly—uncompromising sexiness’
Eloise Grills
‘Brave, visceral and original. An unsettling look at bodies in all their frailty...’
Kristina Olsson
‘We all have monsters that lurk in the dark - cruel little voices that shame us from the shadows. What might happen if we dared to set them loose? If we dared to set ourselves loose? Fat Girl Dancing is the answer. Kris Kneen has written the book of their body, and - like their body - it refuses to be pinned. This book is wounded, exultant and magnificently alive.’
Beejay Silcox
‘This is an enthralling and bold self-portrait. Kneen faces the mirror and the body and the world with an unflinching, generous gaze. Her courage and clarity are, of course, absolutely vital to the book’s power, but what makes this memoir really soar is the beauty and precision of her writing. Passionate, honest—a superb book from one of our best writers.’
Christos Tsiolkas
‘[Fat Girl Dancing is] more than a memoir – it is a self-portrait, expressing both the self over time in their words, and their body as a still in photos and paintings. This is a deliciously queer book in Kneen’s astute consideration of othered bodies and what it means to fall outside white, heterosexual standards of beauty.’
Clare Millar, Readings
‘A masterpiece of introspective corporeality…Kneen’s sensual prose unpacks problems with seeing fatness as being situated within bodies as opposed to contexts…Fat Girl Dancing is an achingly honest memoir about writing the body, with poignant poetic emphasis on artistic expression, performing femininity and rebelliously refusing to languish…Kneen’s journey will resonate deeply with those whose worlds don’t always fit, people who sparkle blue with joy, and those who know how it feels to experience a non-Euclidean selfhood.’
Nanci Nott, ArtsHub
‘Kris Kneen’s Fat Girl Dancing is a series of attempts by the author to really see themself…Their dedication to throwing themself into a pursuit is commendable, and the crushing disappointment of that pursuit not being a good fit feels familiar…Fat Girl Dancing [helps] build the Australian voice in this essential conversation about which bodies deserve respect and when – that is, all of them, and always.’
Sam van Zweden, Age/SMH
‘A potent mix of emotional vulnerability and intellectual acuity…Poignant, enraging, heartbreaking…In this triumphant act they not only reveal their body, they also reveal their heart. And, amid the sequins and feathers, what a sparkling thing it is.’
Monthly
‘Not uniformly positive, but contains a good quote: ‘candid, unflinching, and exquisitely written.’
Australian Book Review
‘The book, like Anthony Mullins’ exquisite photographs of Kneen’s naked curves...resists being seen one way. It invites interpretation. And it asks the reader to conceive a whole from its series of beautifully composed parts, bringing their own experiences and projections to bear on it.’
InReview
jaclyn_sixminutesforme's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
I enjoyed my first read by Kneen - thematically I was drawn to the exploration of fat identity, perhaps enjoying the exploration of gender more so as it felt like it arose so organically across the writing in this. “Woman” feeling like a costume,
something performed, but a name for how to otherwise identify not being as easy to articulate.
I also really enjoyed the way this felt like two parallel threads of narrative writing - it was memoir but episodic and goal-oriented, particularly in so far as Kneen explored their pursuit of diving and burlesque alongside their visual art and documenting the fat body as part of writing about it. The photography and images of paintings in this was particularly effective in teasing out these connections.
I did feel some of the more creative writing pieces interspersed in the last part of the text didn’t work as well, and perhaps didn’t feel as congruous structurally as the earlier part of this text was. Still one of the best works I’ve read exploring fat identity and gender simultaneously, so one I recommend. I also really felt the joy in the latter part of the text around the burlesque performance and thought there was a really sensual and evocative element to the writing here particularly (and so self empowering!).
Many thanks to Text publishing and netgalley for a review copy.
something performed, but a name for how to otherwise identify not being as easy to articulate.
I also really enjoyed the way this felt like two parallel threads of narrative writing - it was memoir but episodic and goal-oriented, particularly in so far as Kneen explored their pursuit of diving and burlesque alongside their visual art and documenting the fat body as part of writing about it. The photography and images of paintings in this was particularly effective in teasing out these connections.
I did feel some of the more creative writing pieces interspersed in the last part of the text didn’t work as well, and perhaps didn’t feel as congruous structurally as the earlier part of this text was. Still one of the best works I’ve read exploring fat identity and gender simultaneously, so one I recommend. I also really felt the joy in the latter part of the text around the burlesque performance and thought there was a really sensual and evocative element to the writing here particularly (and so self empowering!).
Many thanks to Text publishing and netgalley for a review copy.
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