REVIEW for The Very First Bite

Thank you to the author for sending me a copy of this book.

TITLE:          The Very First Bite

AUTHOR:      Cynthia Langston

GENRE:        Fiction

RATING:      

The Very First Bite is exactly the kind of book I love – chick lit, weight issues and humor, all mixed together.

From the very first page, I instantly connected with Lanie Albers.  She has gained weight and she has an obsession with food that is ruling her life and she is basically very, very unhappy.

To add insult to injury, Lanie is going to attend a reunion, where all of her former ‘friends’ and ‘more’ are surely to be in attendance and Lanie DOES NOT want to be fat when she meets up with them again.  She needs to make a great impression and she has very little time to do it all in.

What follows is an absolutely hysterical run through of absolutely every possible ‘get skinny’ quick scheme she can find (and invent or come up with).  I laughed so hard at times that I had to put the book down and this is not something that happens very often to me.  Lanie is my hero – and I actually felt myself wishing that at least one of her ‘methods’ would work.

Having said all of this, I did find a bit of a sad undertone beneath the storyline, which I believe was intentional on the part of the author.  I felt sad that Lanie was putting herself through this because she was not happy with her body – despite all of her other wonderful qualities.  Actually, I completely identified with her, especially when it comes to meeting people you haven’t seen for a long time.  Its all about impressing and making sure that people don’t talk bad about you, even though let’s face it, some people would simply find something else to pick on.

I think the author did a wonderful job of tackling a very sensitive and delicate issue and did it well and with a nice balance.  I loved this book and I think I will reread it again J