Rating: 
Summary: Unvarnished truth about life as the Fat Girl
Review: This is now my favorite fat girl adolescent novel ever. A teenage beauty queen named Lara gets a mysterious disease that causes her, despite her best intentions, to gain weight - lots of it, fast. In the first chapter (numbered 118, her weight at the time) she's rich and has a perfect family...except that Mom's insecure and vulgar, Lara's friends hit on dad, and little brother is a sullen stoner. But they all look GREAT. Mom was a beauty queen herself). Lara thinks she's a liberal; she has a chubby sidekick (Molly "the Mouth") and doesn't join in when her spiteful skinny friends mock all the outcasts (but she doesn't do much to stop them either). When she suggests to the school Fat Girl, Fatty Patty, that maybe they could work out together, she is hurt and puzzled when Patty lashes out at her. Little does Lara know that within a year she will be known as "Lardass."As the chapter numbers rise with her weight, watch her transformation from Prep With It All to bitter, defensive, jazz afficianado. She not only has to be the Fat Girl at her new school (they've moved so Perfect Mom can get Perfect Dad away from Perfect Mistress),but with NO TRAINING in how to be the fat girl and survive. So she's surprised when what looks like flirting is just the setup for a horrible joke, at the horrors of gym class, at how her old friends are shallow and horrible. She even starts putting up with thoughtless garbage from her boyfriend while getting clingy and jealous like a fat girl! References so modern they're already dated abound (unfortunately for future readers, who will trip over every one of them). The word "y'all" is thrown in, possibly at random, every few sentences in the first chapter to show that it is the south, but it tapers off. These are petty flaws and wouldn't be noticeable if the rest wasn't dynamite. I can say no more without giving away key information, but this book is far more true and complicated than the cover photo suggests. Anyone that has anything to do with weight or adolescents needs to read this book. Bennett captures so many of the little (and huge) indignities that I could almost swear she herself was fat.
Rating:
Summary: Something Great
Review: After reading LIFE IN THE FAT LANE I realized how hard it mustbe for kids to cope with things like Lara did. I was so emotionalwith this book and I almost could never put it down. I really enjoyed this novel and I feel that it couldn't have been written in a better way!
Rating:
Summary: This is such a good book!
Review: I really loved this book. At first it seemed stupid becauseLara's life was SOOOOOOOO perfect. But, then as Lara bgan to gain alot of weight because of axle-crowne syndrome she began to get teased,and I felt very bad for her. I was very touched and I cried many timesthroughout this book... I wish the author would write a sequel to this book. It was SO good.
Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary book
Review: I am in awe of Cherie Bennett. She actually manages to combine a compelling story, strong characters, a profoundly important theme, and highly unfashionable (but true) ideas. On one level, this book works as a parable about the shallowness of popularity. On another, it examines the fragility of one supposedly "stable" family, and how little it took (Lara's weight gain) to blow it apart. On yet another, it simply tells the truth. 98% of all diets fail. We are bombarded by impossible and unhealthy ideals of thinness. People gain weight *from the process of dieting*. There's every reason to believe (e.g., Steven Blair's work) that weight in and of itself is not a meaningful yardstick of health. Low-fat diets cause breast cancer. (New England study involving over 9000 nurses. The same study showed that weight was not an indicator of early death-- unless people were too thin! Exactly the opposite was wrongly reported in the popular press. George Orwell, anyone?)The NIH, in 1994, pronounced that dieting was dangerous and useless. (A fact that everyone seems to have gotten total amnesia about!) When you hear the opposite, as we so frequently do, check the actual facts-- you will be shocked. Cherie Bennett was not afraid to take a very unpopular position, and I applaud her courage. The only downside is that many will avoid this book because it's marketed for teens. It is not a typical teen book. Do yourself a favor and read it!
Rating:
Summary: An amazing novel!
Review: Even if you are 12 or 25, this book will make you THINK! Cherie Bennett writes the life of 16-year-old Lara like SHE is the fictional character. Lara, through the book, slowly discovers life isn't one big beauty-pagent and realizes she hasn't been herself her whole life. She gets the experience of being one of the girls she'd felt sorry for her whole life and living through a whirlwind of memorable events.
Rating:
Summary: Life In The Fat Lane
Review: This book is Really good. It is about a junior/senior Lara Archeade. Former Homecoming queen and beauty pagent winner, she gets a rare disease, Axell-Crownne, and she gains 100 pounds. Eventually, she turns into one of the girls that she always made fun of. And to make it worse, her family troubles are getting worse. How will Lara survive?
Rating:
Summary: This is an outstanding book!
Review: I highly recommend this book to any teenage girl today. I could relate to this book so well because it didn't sound like some out-of-it adult writing it, but, it actually felt as though I had entered the main character's head it was so realistic. LIFE IN THE FAT LANE made me both laugh and cry. Lara's encounter with people at school was so much like what happens to teased kids at my school that it was scary. This is a MUST READ! Cherie Bennett should be congraulated for an awesome job!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully horrible
Review: What's the horrible part about this book? Well truthfully there is no horrible part really. Just the way the characters have the nerve to act. But that's what makes this such a moving, gripping book. The issues delt with in this book, although they may seem a little far fetched (does anyone really gain 100 pounds in less than a year? ), are REAL issues. Popularity, revenge, and bad family life are things most teenagers deal with every day. I loved this book and I think others will too.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best book!
Review: I read this book in 6 hours! I read it all the way through! Without stopping! I felt a lot of things... sadness, happiness, etc... It was great! Anyway... I love this book! It is a MUST READ!
Rating: 
Summary: The book that helps you find the true you.
Review: This book helps you find the true you, and leads you towards accepting it. The book has a girl going through what most teenagers now go through: insecurities, shallowness, lonliness, etc. The book can give you a good picture of how materialistic and selfish people in this world can be, and it will give you a motive to change it. I think when you're done reading it, you'll take a good look at yourself and what your life is about. The main concept is accepting you for who you are, and most girls need help doing so.
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