Does My Bum Look Big in This? by Arabella Weir
Aside from her first – and almost always noted by book critics as by far her best – “Does My Bum Look Big in This?” author Arabella Weir’s other novels’ titles demonstrate her prevailing sense of humor: “The Real Me is Thin,” “Onwards and Upwards” and “Stupid Cupid.”
Weir, a popular comedy actor in the U.K., adapted “Does My Bum Look Big in This?” into a play. The title comes from a catchphrase of one of Weir’s popular sketch comedy characters. Weir is also a columnist for The Guardian.
The novel has been described as semi-autobiographical. However, Weir is the daughter of Sir Michael Weir, a United Nations diplomat (and eventual ambassador), is one of six children, and had a peripatetic childhood. She was born in San Francisco, lived in Washington D.C., Cairo and Bahrain.
She was bounced from school to school until her parents divorced and she eventually landed at the posh Camden School for Girls where, she’s admitted, she headed a tight-knit gang. Despite being the “clown” of the group, they terrorized teachers and behaved very badly. She now says (to the SecEd website) that her son (she also now has a daughter) “has the same, cheeky, withering, over-confident attitude. It must be in the genes.” She was the lead singer for Bazooka Joe (a band mate was Stuart Goddard, who became Adam Ant.) Weir has appeared on many television shows (and it all started with a tiny part on “The French Liutenant’s Woman”).
“Does My Bum” predates the far more successful and better-known “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” and covers similar territory, as it tells the first-person/diary-style story of a young woman fighting that age-old battle … with the bulge. Like Bridget, Jackie is endlessly insecure despite the attention she’s clearly getting from very attractive men.
Thirty-ish Jacqueline M. Pane has close friends with whom she shares a strong bond, a domineeringly frightful mother who feeds her daughter’s numbing insecurity, a brother who lazily enjoys being “the good one,” a distant father, and a stepmother who is almost her age.
Again, readers of this very popular genre will be able to effectively cite parallel’s to Helen Fielding’s iconic and lively Brit. Jackie’s father is passive, her mother is unsupportive and Jackie herself finds herself succumbing to a cad.
While “Does My Bum Look Big In This?” certainly has moments of genuine humor, the problem with the book – and it is, indeed a profound one — is that the lead character is so obviously dense, it is incredibly irritating for the reader. There comes a point midway through the novel where, frankly, it takes restraint not to call Jackie stupid right out loud and to not abandon the book altogether.
Certainly, there are those who are going to find a character self conscious of her look easy to relate to. There are elements to the story – giving a guy who doesn’t deserve it more credit than he deserves and not realizing the prize in front of her – that many can cringingly recall in their past. Weir’s inherent sense of humor does make appearances. One can imagine that in play format, with Weir at the helm, “Does This Make My Bum Look Big?” would undoubtedly be successful. As a novel and as a character to embrace, however, it leaves the reader wanting.
About the Author
When Sammi is not reading, she enjoys working in her flower gardens. She uses many different types of plant supports from Garden Harvest Supply for her perennial flowers.
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