"Rules for the Perpetual Diet" - Discover a Paris few travelers see with K.S.R. Burns' gripping novel!


Book review by Lizzie Harwood

O, Amy Brodie is one messed-up narrator! (The best kind, in my opinion, because complex makes for interesting.)

This immediately engaging novel by K.S.R. Burns, author of The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl, sees Amy Brodie, a 29-year-old childless wife in Phoenix, teetering on the edge. Amy’s in the grip of many issues at the beginning of this enthralling contemporary women’s fiction: grief, an eating disorder, self-denial… to name a few. Her husband is the epitome of the solid, don’t-change-stuff, immutable provider; her best friend just died of cancer; she views co-workers through a prism of revulsion. The ballast in her life is these rules. Her perpetual diet.

When I hit the first of these rules (there are 30-odd), my heart sank a little. In this intriguing novel, the rules came as a manifesto for anorexia and there’s a wee bit of fatism going on with Amy. But we quickly realize how her rules are just so—real and important to talk about in contemporary literature. Who among today’s teens, pre-teens, and young women hasn’t turned against their own body by following some rules of eating? To lose weight, or get healthier, to get a man, or control all the outward chaos by reigning in our own innocent flesh. It’s terrible and it’s true. So many women are on some perpetual diet right now. However, when Amy leaps on a plane to Paris, her City of Light snaps her out of her rules with some very unexpected plot twists.

Burns’s prose underpins this novel with deft humor and laser-sharp descriptions and characterization. This is a funny read. And surprising. As Amy delves deeper into Paris—literally descending into hidden catacombs—she shucks off the past to embrace a present-moment style of living that leaves the reader applauding her bravado. This is no sugar-coated, pink-bowed, fairy tale of Paris!

I was reminded of Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women: "I felt that it was not so different from all the other advice handed out to women, to girls, advice that assumed being female made you damageable, that a certain amount of carefulness and solemn fuss and self-protection were called for, whereas men were supposed to be able to go out and take on all kinds of experiences and shuck off what they didn’t want and come back proud. Without even thinking about it, I had decided to do the same.”

I loved how Amy Brodie decides to do the same.


Lizzie Harwood is the author of "Triumph: Collected Stories" and has a memoir, "Xamnesia: Everything I Forgot in my Search for an Unreal Life", launching late May 2015. When she isn’t writing, she’s neck-deep in editing. Visit http://www.editordeluxe.com and http://www.lizziehbooks.com, Lizzie Harwood Books on Facebook, and @lizziehbooks on Twitter for the latest.

Photo credit: K.S.R. Burns

Comments

  1. I'd like to win that book. It sounds interesting.
    Love this blog.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for participating in the giveaway cigalechanta! The randomly selected winner was Nicole Evans Treese on Facebook.

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  2. I don't do diet (any longer)!
    I don't follow the rules (any rules)
    I DO love reading
    I would love to get this book

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    Replies
    1. Kiki! It's so good to hear from you again! Thanks for participating in the giveaway. The randomly selected winner was Nicole Evans Treese on Facebook.

      Delete
  3. I have spent my life on a perpetual diet. I finally decided to quit dieting and counting calories and to just eat healthy. Viola - I lost weight! I love Paris and this looks like a fun book. I'd love to win a copy

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    Replies
    1. Susan, Eating healthy foods and not dieting makes a lot of sense. I'm happy that it has been successful for you! Thanks for participating in the giveaway. The randomly selected winner was Nicole Evans Treese on Facebook.

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