You are already enough, and you are not too much. J. Nicole Morgan grew up fat and loving Jesus. But she was forever burdened by what she saw as her biggest spiritual flaw: her weight. In Fat and Faithful, she shares her journey from body shame to fat acceptance and shows us how to care for the image of God found in every body--including our own. When the world tells us that our bodies are too much, J. Nicole Morgan reminds us that all people--no matter their size, shape, or ability--are beloved of God. Bodies of all sizes, shapes, colors, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities are expressions of the body of Christ. When our first prayer isn't about changing our bodies, we create space to care for our neighbors and to celebrate the unique ways we are equipped to serve our communities in the bodies we have. Fat and Faithful shows us that the world is wider than the size of our waistline.

Confident at work but clueless at love, Claire is 40 and overweight—not a recipe she imagines can solve the romance gap. Dealing with her father’s death and an angry teen doesn’t make it easier. Finding no help from her ex, who is distracted by remarriage to a much younger woman, Claire copes by relying on a faithful circle of friends, a wicked sense of humor, and a new interest in fitness. When Claire meets Rob, a beguiling, slightly pudgy man at the gym, there is an instant connection. Just maybe she can haul the composure she finds at work into the gym with her. Or is it fat chance for that? ~ ~ ~ “A funny, moving portrait of a small-town Jewish community and the people who inhabit it, including a single mom coping with loss, a teen, and modern love. You’ll be rooting for Orenstein’s characters—especially her witty, lovably self-deprecating heroine—the whole way through.” — Jennifer Richler, author of essays appearing in The New York Times, Slate, Salon, and The Atlantic “Fat Chance is an evocative journey that sharpens our contact with what it means to be human. And it is a hilariously loving yet unflinching portrait of a woman imprisoned by the body she thinks isolates her from love and—maybe more important—sex. Orenstein is like a magician pulling pennies from the air, infusing the haunting with laughter, the seeming inescapability with hope, and in the end offers the surprising and poignant gift of a special kind of joy.” — Michael Adams, author of Blind Man’s Bluff and Anniversaries in the Blood

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and The Dovekeepers comes a soul-searching story about a young woman struggling to redefine herself and the power of love, family, and fate. Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night. Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap. Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel.

AASECT Book Award for General Audience 'A joy to read' ESSIE DENNIS 'A beautifully written collection' JUNO ROCHE We're here. We're queer. We're fat. This one-of-a-kind collection of prose and poetry radically explores the intersection of fat and queer identities, showcasing new, emerging and established queer and trans writers from around the world. Celebrating fat and queer bodies and lives, this book challenges negative and damaging representations of queer and fat bodies and offers readers ways to reclaim their bodies, providing stories of support, inspiration and empowerment. In writing that is intimate, luminous and emotionally raw, this anthology is a testament to the diversity and power of fat queer voices and experiences, and they deserve to be heard.

Too often, fatness has been viewed as a moral failing. Fat Christian women in particular are shamed and marginalized by the message that they are failing God because they can't change their bodies. More of You will challenge that status quo, teaching readers to resist the shame and guilt that is pressed onto them by the world and instead to embrace their bodies, take up space, and learn to navigate the world in ways that allow them to flourish. With wit and candor, Amanda Martinez Beck, a fat woman herself, compiles her hard-won wisdom to give the skinny on thriving in a fat body to others who have been pushed to the margins of acceptance. Offering helpful tools like The Fat Girl's Bill of Rights and a script for a weight-neutral doctor's visit, this book addresses real needs in the fat acceptance community, from how to find self-love in a thin-obsessed world, to navigating a world built for butts smaller than yours, to advocating for equality and justice for fat women's medical care.

Now get set for fabulous experience. When it's over, you're going to look differenct, feel differenct and be differenct. It is going to be exciting for you to watch the changes take place in your body as the techniques of this book become yours to use.

This popular bestseller has been greatly revised and expanded to include new insights on conscience, infallibility, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.