Crystal Maldonado Takes On Fatphobia and the Latinx Experience in Debut YA Novel
"Fat Chance, Charlie Vega" centers on Charlie, a fat Puerto Rican girl, and body positivity.
Have you ever read a book and been instantly transported back to your teenage years? Because that’s exactly how I felt reading Crystal Maldonado’s debut novel, “Fat Chance, Charlie Vega.”
The coming of age book follows 16-year-old Charlie Vega, a fat Puerto Rican girl living in a white Connecticut suburb, as she navigates high school, young love and her complicated relationship with her mother, as well as her attempts to love herself and her body.
When I first learned about Maldonado’s book, I knew immediately that I needed to get my hands on a copy. I’ve always loved reading and immersing myself in the stories of others, but never thought I’d see a character that I related to so much.
Like Charlie, I grew up as a Latina who went to a majority white school surrounded by skinny, blonde girls named Lauren. As a white Latina, I could easily blend in at school. But while I could blend in thanks to the color of my skin, my weight made it impossible to feel like I was “normal.”
I spoke with Crystal about “Fat Chance, Charlie Vega,” and what it’s like to write a book that puts fat Brown girls front and center.
Nikki: Why do you think it’s so important that young adults and even just adults, in general, see stories centered on fat Brown girls?
Crystal: I think that by … centering stories on fat Brown girls, it invites people into books who maybe otherwise kind of felt like they were on the outskirts. So like growing up, I personally just felt like I never got to see anybody that looked like me in anything that I read or anything that I watched, and that was super lonely for me. Whenever I would get, you know, a fat character or a Brown character, it was usually an either-or kind of thing and never both. Right? And so even though we've made progress, it still feels like we have a ways to go despite there being so many of us out there. And so I feel like the more stories we can tell then the more accepted we feel and there's a lot of really great power in that.
Nikki: Absolutely! So, one of the issues you really talk about in this book is weight and body positivity and feeling okay with your body. And I noticed that Charlie, despite being very conscious of her weight and how others viewed her and even how she viewed herself, she vehemently refused her mom’s attempts to diet or eat differently. What kind of message were you trying to send in that decision to write that in?
Crystal: So When we kind of meet Charlie in the book, she openly admits she’s tried her mom’s diets, right? And she’s tried eating differently. She’s tried those awful weight-loss shakes and she hasn’t seen any success in that.
Charlie has kind of hit this point where she’s like, you know, I have already tried XYZ and it has not worked and I’m over it. I also think she’s a teenager and her mom’s insistence and kind of, she’s kind of unrelenting right in this, like push to have Charlie diet and only eat, you know, grilled chicken and these shakes, I think that’s really damaging for Charlie. She really wants her mom to just kind of love her and appreciate her for who she is.
So, I wanted to show her pushing back on these ideas that her mom is pushing on her. I kind of view Charlie’s mom as almost like a representation of a lot of the messages that women get in society who are told, “You know, if you just do this, then you’ll be thinner. Or if you just do that, then you’ll be happier.” I wanted to show her kind of actively taking control and fighting back against some of those narratives that are just so pervasive and so overwhelming.
Nikki: Something that I really related to…you know, I grew up around Chilean food and other Hispanic food. I found that there was this emphasis on like Puerto Rican food being really good for the soul, but maybe not your waistline. Do you think that’s a struggle in the Latinx community?
Crystal: I think there is like a perception overall that, at least for Puerto Rican food or really any nonwhite food or carb-heavy food, there’s this idea that like, this is going to make you gain weight and it might taste delicious, but it’s not “good for you.” But I think that’s mostly because these foods are often looked at through the lens of the white American society.
I think we see in the book that Charlie’s mom has internalized a lot of these thoughts and it makes sense that Charlie also then feels this way. So part of Charlie’s journey moving forward is to kind of unlearn these ideas that she’s grown up with. We see her kind of progress in the book, but she still has a lot to learn. Especially when it comes to the way that she, and really all of us view food and talk about diets and bodies. It’s overwhelming to have to worry about that piece of it too, because I think food is this great unifier, especially in Latinx communities where this can be a great connector for us to feel in touch with our roots.
Nikki: Any talk of “Fat Chance, Charlie Vega” would not be complete if we don’t talk a little bit about Charlie’s relationship with Brian. Could you talk about that?
Crystal: Yes! I would love to talk about Brian. They’re my favorite. The love story in this book is loosely based on my real-life love story with my husband. We met when we were in high school and we also had an art class together. So that’s why I wanted to have the two of them have that sweet kind of discovery of each other through art and have that kind of be a little theme for them.
We watch them through this book start out as acquaintances and then they moved to friends. And we see them really start to care for each other and kind of understand one another. And then as they grow closer, Brian really becomes someone that Charlie starts to lean on and he makes her kind of feel worthy in ways that she hasn’t really felt before. So it’s a nice parallel, I think, at the same time that she’s starting to appreciate herself and her body, just make room for who she is…So does this really great friend of hers. And I think that’s pretty magical.
Nikki: What do you hope “Fat Chance, Charlie Vega” will do for young Latinas and other women of color?
Crystal: I hope so much that this book does a couple of things. First, I really hope that it helps people feel just more seen and makes them feel worthy because Charlie is this character that we don’t often get to see in media. I think if you share any characteristics with her…if you’re fat, if you’re Puerto Rican, if you, I don’t know, wear glasses, if you, whatever, there are hopefully pieces and parts of yourself that you can identify with in Charlie. And I think there is something very validating about that. When you relate to a character’s experiences suddenly, it almost feels like someone’s kind of taking your hand a little bit and being like, “Yeah, we’re in this together.”
I’d also love for this story to maybe start some conversations about things like fatphobia and Latinx identity and how there is really no one right way to be either of those things, right? You can be fat and you can love exercising. You can be fat and you can, you know, love food. Those are both fine.
We see Charlie grappling with this a little bit and we also see her kind of straddling the line between feeling like she’s simultaneously kind of too white and too Puerto Rican in other ways. And it’s exhausting. But I think a lot of us feel there’s this like internal struggle where we are just worried, we don’t fit cleanly into one box or another. It’s a universal struggle, but also still feels very individual. So I hope that this helps remind people there is really no right way to be yourself.
*Writer’s note: Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.*