An Amazon Top 100 Editors' Pick of the Year One of Entertainment Weekly's "10 Best Books of 2015"
One of Bustle's "2015’s 25 Best Books, Fiction Edition"
A New York Post “Best Novel to Read This Summer”
An Us Weekly “Hot Summer Novel”
O, The Oprah Magazine, "10 Titles to Pick Up Now"
A USA Today “New and Noteworthy” Book
One of Vulture's "8 Books You Need to Read This May"
A Kirkus "Best Fiction of 2015" Title
One of BookPage's "Best Books of 2015"
One of Kobo.com's "Must Read Fiction Debuts of 2015"
A LitReactor Staff Pick: The Best Books of 2015
One of New York Daily News's "10 Books for Your Summer Reading List"
Women's National Book Association, "Great Group Reads 2015"
An Indie Next Pick
“Dietland completely blew me away. It's audacious and gutsy and heartbreaking and I want to grab women on the street and shake them until they promise to read it—and also buy copies for their daughters.” —Jennifer Weiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good In Bed, In Her Shoes, and others
“Walker’s first novel leaves chick lit in the pixie dust, treading the rougher terrain of radical critique and shadowy conspiracies — territory closer to Rachel Kushner than Helen Fielding.”—New York Magazine, One of Vulture's "8 Books You Need to Read This May"
"If Amy Schumer turned her subversive feminist sketches into a novel, dark on the inside but coated with a glossy, palatable sheen, it would probably look a lot like Dietland—a thrilling, incendiary manifesto disguised as a beach read...It’s a giddy revenge fantasy that will shake up your thinking and burrow under your skin, no matter its size."—Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A)
“I've never dropped anyone out of a helicopter. But Dietland resonated with the part of me that wants, just once, to deck a street harasser. At the very least, I wish an incurable itch upon everyone who has catcalled me on the street. I wish food poisoning and public embarrassment on everyone I've heard make a rape joke. I wish toothache and headlice and too-small shoes upon every stranger who has told me to smile. Which is to say, sometimes I forget I'm angry, but I am. Dietland is a complicated, thoughtful, and powerful expression of that same anger.”—Annalisa Quinn, NPR.org
“Plum Kettle, a ghostwriter for a popular teen mag, is lured into a subversive sisterhood in this riotous first novel. Finally, the feminist murder mystery/makeover story we’ve been waiting for.”—O, The Oprah Magazine, One of "10 Titles to Pick Up Now"
"A delightful, page-turning thriller that's also a feminist revenge fantasy. I tore through it in about two days—it is amazingly accessible while still being whip-smart, and it deals with timely issues without feeling like a lame Law & Order 'ripped from the headlines' stunt."——Jessica Grose, Lenny Letter
"[Ms. Walker's] writing can spit with venom, at the rigid expectations of women’s weight and sexuality...As a social commentary, Dietland is no shrill tirade. Ms. Walker captures the misery of failing to fit in, to fit into the right clothes, to fit in with the right people and their expectations."—The Economist
"At 300 lbs., Plum Kettle lives for the days when gastric bypass will help her shed her extra girth—until she's challenged to shed her misery instead. Witty and wise."—
People
"Extraordinary…Walker skewers the diet industry and many other realities of the misogynistic world we live in...The world needed this novel; it’s a breath of fresh air to feminist literature with a nod to dystopian lit but a lot of contemporary flair… altogether different, fiercely political yet stylistically unique and readable...It’s a very well-rounded, emotionally rich tale… Plum is a character who will stay with me, and that’s no small thing.”—Charlotte Hammond and Trilby Beresford, Amy Poehler's Smart Girls
"The anti-beach read, this spiky, funny book skewers the beauty industry and the first world's weight-loss obsession. The story revolves around constantly hungry ghostwriter Plum, who gets involved in an underground feminist group that challenges her world view. It's wonderfully unapologetic, off-beat and a lot of fun."—Elle UK
“Sarai Walker deftly marries body insecurities and humor in her satirical debut. At 300 pounds, Plum declares a diet fail and concedes to weight-loss surgery. But when she meets a radical feminist, she begins to try on confidence for size.”—US Weekly
"Fight Club meets Margaret Atwood in this absorbing thriller that weighs the expectations of society against one's own self-worth."—Bustle, "2015’s 25 Best Books, Fiction Edition"
“An incredibly smart novel that will make you think about the society we live in and how desperately we women want to be thinner, to be smaller, to disappear.”—PopSugar
"The biggest flaw I see in Dietland is that the people who most need to read it never will."—Karen Sandstrom, Cleveland.com
“[Dietland’s] message resonates…It’s vanishingly rare to see a novel that looks like the much-maligned ‘chick lit’ – and sometimes reads like it – so gleefully censorious of rape culture… If you’ve lived in this culture – if you’ve ever been a young woman who is trying to eat so little or eat so much that she disappears…you may take some cold comfort from Dietland, and its opportunities for vicarious revenge.”—The Guardian
"In this slyly subversive feminist novel, 300-pound Plum plans to get her stomach stapled until a mysterious group of women convinces her otherwise — just as a militant, anonymous band of vigilantes called “Jennifer” begins wreaking havoc on bad men — dropping rapists from planes, blackmailing CEOs of exploitative newspapers — and inspiring regular ladies to do the same. Word of warning: While you may be inclined to try this at home, it’s probably better left in Walker’s competent hands and on her incendiary pages for now." —Entertainment Weekly, "10 Best Books of 2015"
"A tale teeming with both sarcasm and honesty...Dietland transports readers to the front lines of the diet wars—a place where body positivity and a gratifying read are guaranteed."—BUST
"Read [Dietland] not only because it’s smart and timely, but because it’s heartbreaking and tragic and very very comic (as long as you like your laughs dark) and because it will guar...