Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

With her signature acerbic wit and captivating insight, the author of the wildly popular Straight Up and Dirty offers a powerful and beautifully stark portrait of adolescence

Klein was an eighth grader with a weight problem. It was a problem at school, where the boys called her "Moose," and it was a problem at home, where her father reminded her, "No one likes fat girls." After many frustrating sessions with a nutritionist known as the fat doctor of Roslyn Heights, Long Island, Klein's parents enrolled her for a summer at fat camp. Determined to return to school thin and popular, without her "lard arms" and "puckered ham," Stephanie embarked on a memorable journey that would shape more than just her body. It would shape her life.

In the ever-shifting terrain between fat and thin, adulthood and childhood, cellulite and starvation, Klein shares the cutting details of what it truly feels like to be an overweight child, from the stinging taunts of classmates, to the off-color remarks of her own father, to her thin mother's compulsive dissatisfaction with her own body. Calling upon her childhood diary entries, Klein reveals her deepest thoughts and feelings from that turbulent, hopeful time, baring her soul and making her heartache palpable.

Whether Klein is describing her life as a chubby adolescent camper -- getting weighed on a meat scale, petting past curfew, and "chunky dunking" in the lake -- or what it's like now as a fit mother, having one-sided conversations with her newborn twins about the therapy they'll one day need, this hilarious yet grippingly vulnerable book will remind you what it was like to feel like an outsider, to desperately seek the right outfit, the right slang, the best comeback, or whatever that unattainable something was that would finally make you fit in.

Average Customer Rating:

Great Read

Customer Rating:

This was a fantastic read. After reading and relating to "Straight up and Dirty" I loved finding out how this insecure yet self absorbed character came to be. I think every woman can relate to "Moose" whether they spent summers at fat camp or not. This book spells out most female fear, whether young or old... not knowing who you are and people not accepting you for what you might be. Like "Straight Up and Dirty", "Moose" is smart, funny, and real. Stephanie Klein is a great talent.

Ouch!!!

Customer Rating:

Standing at her locker at school Stephanie Klein first ears the taunting calls of "Moose, Moose" from boys in the halls at school. Living with a mother who is continually accessing her own body and making comments about Stephanie's body, a father who often reminds her that "boys don't like fat girls" (sometimes other comments inappropriate from a father) and the taunts and whispers of classmates, Stephanie knows she is fat. Stephanie Klein is the latest author to enter the ring of weight memoirs. Focusing on her summers spent at "fat camp' Klein ruefully recalls the social minefields of growing up as a fat girl. Ironically, when she first comes to fat camp she finds herself in an envious position, she is one of the smallest campers. Within the safety of camp she begins to develop socially and also develops some dangerous ways to try to control her weight. She also has to navigate the confusing world of camp, where others girls her size and larger struggle as she does Told with a great deal of wry asides (which seems to be a defensive method to keep others at arms' length) and almost manic in her determination to make the joke at her own expense before someone else does, Moose is a bittersweet coming of age story. Klein intertwines present day with past memories and the reader realizes the burden the author still struggles under, whether fat or thin, healthy or fit, that "big girl" still has a home inside Klein, and wants to be heard.

I love camp!

Customer Rating:

This book was great. I loved every page of it. I went to overnight camp when i was growing up from the time i was very young, until i was too old, and then i was a counselor. Stephanie Klein goes through her life journey and her time at fat camp, and even though i did not go to fat camp, camp is camp. It was a very funny, relatable book. Some people have commented here that it was a bit vulgar, but i found it to be honest and true, and not vulgar. I read this book prior to reading "Straight up and dirty" and glad i read them in that order, cause from Moose, i got to know the girl who was a woman in Straight Up. :)

Not Enough Substance

Customer Rating:

Stephanie is a woman who has always struggled with her weight. As an adult she is able to go back through her childhood experiences, drawing information from the diaries and letters she kept throughout the years to reconstruct her adolescent years. This book details a summer Stephanie went away to Camp Yanisin, a "Fat Camp" where she was certain she would lose weight and become the beautiful and popular girl she was sure she was destined to be. Although there are some interesting stories in this book, it just didn't come together for me. I was expecting Stephanie to have more perspective about her childhood, to be able to look back with wisdom and describe the things she'd learned. Instead, this book details sexual escapades, humiliation at the hands of her peers, nasty ways the author interacted with her parents, and various risky weight-loss strategies. I did like the stories, and found Stephanie's camp experience to be amusing and touching, but I was hoping for more. Perhaps I expected this to be the story of a person who had gone through a great deal in adolescence but was able to overcome her experiences and live a healthy life. Instead, I felt that the author at the end was still struggling with the same problems she'd had at thirteen.

Thought It Would Be Better	Customer Rating:
This book is the true story about Stephanie and how she battles losing weight at "Fat Camp." I think teenage girls would enjoy this most. I found it somewhat interesting, but it did not really hold my attention in the second half of the book. Not all that bad but nothing great either.