Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul

A poignant and ruthlessly honest journey through cultural expectations  of size, race, and gender—and toward a brighter future—from National  Book Award nominee Evette Dionne

My body has not betrayed me; it  has continued rebounding against all odds. It is a body that others map  their expectations on, but it has never let me down.

In this  insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne  explores the minefields fat Black woman are forced to navigate in the  course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to  adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to diagnosis with heart  failure at age twenty-nine, Dionne tracks her relationships with  friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and  self-image.

Along the way, she lifts back the curtain to reveal  the subtle, insidious forms of surveillance and control levied at fat  women: At the doctor's office, where any health ailment is treated with a  directive to lose weight. On dating sites, where larger bodies are  rejected or fetishized. On TV, where fat characters are asexual comedic  relief. But Dionne's unflinching account of our deeply held prejudices  is matched by her fierce belief in the power of self-love.

An  unmissable portrait of a woman on a journey toward understanding our  society and herself, Weightless holds up a mirror to the world we live  in and asks us to imagine the future we deserve.