This was my first find through goodreads.com (see post below) and it proved to be a true gem. The title spoke to me instantly, and once I downloaded the sample to my Kindle, I had to start reading it immediately since I was two pages into the book and already laughing out loud."Diary of a Mad Fat Girl" by Stephanie McAfee centers around Ace (Graciela) Jones, the books narrator, and her two best friends, Lilly and Chloe, all three of whom work at a high school in a small town in the South. Ace is a size 16, sarcastic and funny as all heck art teacher, who dreams of owning an art studio, and is still in love with her ex, Mason. Lilly is a beautiful ex-lingerie model and Chloe is a beaten woman, literally and figuratively, thanks to a cheating and abusive husband who everyone else believes is a fine-upstanding citizen.
As the book takes off, Ace’s hated arch-nemesis, Catherine Hilliard, the school principal, accuses Lilly of sleeping with a student. While the truth behind the accusation against Lilly remains an element of the story, once Chloe ends up in the hospital yet again due to her abusive husband, Richard, the main action then revolves around Ace and Lilly teaming up to play private detectives on Chloe’s behalf, as they get into one scrape after another trying to capture her sleazy husband red-handed in one of his many misdeeds.
The storyline has plenty of action to keep you entertained, including breaking an entering, dressing up as drag queens to sneak into a topless bar, and mad dashes in the dark to escape the police, but what I especially loved was the great dialogue between characters, as well as Ace’s witty, sarcastic humor:
“She whips out her school issued photo ID card that has a picture of her looking like an advertisement for Crest White Strips and Pantene” (speaking about Lilly). “I whip out my school issued ID card, but my picture looks more like a startled primate at the zoo.”I loved this book. It was a fun, fast paced, and quick read. Not the next great American novel, but a wonderful way to spend a couple hours of your evening. The book is only available in an ebook format through Kindle or Nook, and unfortunately I found a number of spelling and grammatical errors which was slightly disconcerting. Nonetheless, the good far outweighed the bad, especially at the incredible price of 99¢. I also offer fair warning that the book has a lot of cussing, though that fact didn’t bother me at all.
