Abstract
The fat heroine has
been elevated to cover girl in five 2023 Young Adult romance
novels that feature not just big bodies, but dark skin, immigrant cultures and
LGBTQ relationships. A content analysis of The Fall of Whit Rivera (Maldonado); The Dos and Donuts of
Love (Jaigirdar); Her Good Side (Weatherspoon); Out of Character (Miller),
and Then Everything Happens at Once (Girard) reveals a
shift in the descriptive rhetoric of fatness and a move toward stories that
embrace acceptance without (too much) guilt or a weight-loss blueprint. The
characters recognize the effects of fatphobia and weight stigma in their lives,
but fatness is not the books’ primary theme. The quest for love; family drama,
and self-discovery are more prominent. It’s as if the protagonists aren’t fat
at all.
