Happy Fat

Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You

By: Sofie Hagen

Narrated by: Sofie Hagen

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

I am a fat person and I love my body. I feel lucky to be able to say that. It has taken a lot of work and a lot of time to get here. I often meet people who are incredibly puzzled that I can love this body. Taking the world into account - how we are taught to see bodies and judge bodies - I understand the confusion. But I am quite sure I can explain it. I want to tell you what I have learned and how I got here.

In Happy Fat, comedian Sofie Hagen describes how she conquered a negative relationship with her body and provides practical tips for listeners to do the same.   

She exposes how fatphobia is embedded in society at every level - in our relationships, our public spaces, and the TV shows we watch - powered by the toxic mix of capitalism and the media.   

Part memoir, part social commentary, in Happy Fat Sofie explains how she removed fatphobic influences from her daily life and found self-acceptance in a world where judgment and discrimination are rife - drawing wisdom from other Fat Liberation champions along the way.   

From shame and sex to airplane seats, love and getting stuck in public toilets, Happy Fat is a funny, angry and impassioned look at how taking up space in a culture that is desperate to reduce you can be radical, emboldening and life-changing.      

©2018 Sofie Hagen (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"Perfect, kind, hilarious and persuasive." (Lena Dunham)

"You need this book. Your mum needs this book. Your best friend needs this book. Everyone needs a dose of Happy Fat!" (Julie Murphy)

"As an old-school stand-up of the self-deprecating variety, I found Sofie’s book fascinating and it’s introduced to me a whole new school of thought." (Jo Brand)

very much enjoyed

thought provoking, uncomfortable and enjoyable. big Sofie Hagen fan, obvs reccomend the Audible version for her accent

So good and so real and important book

This book is so important and informative and really funny and real! Just give yourself the good experience off listening to this book and get educated about fat activism and fat liberation history between crying of both laughter and horror and the genius way this book is written!!

Favourite!!

Happy Fat is the best book I've listened to in 2019 - maybe even for most of 2018, too!
I loved this - it was firm but kind, funny and sometimes sad.
While I haven't read-read the book, I think the audible version is probably better because we get Sofie's commentary on little bits and pieces which really added to the experience for me.
Thank you, Sofie Hagen! This is a wonderful book.

Great!

I loved the book; the world needs more of this. And, listening to Sofie is a delight. I will recommend it to all of my friends :)

I wanted to love it

The blurb really enticed me to buy this book. I'm fat and it's a relatively new concept to me. I've discovered also when it comes to buying ladies clothes you can't be fat and short. Not only am I fat, I'm very short, and all petite ranges stop at size 16. So I'm struggling in this world where seats in the cinema, on planes and in restaurants are incredibly uncomfortable because my feet don't reach the floor and my bum is squished up between the armrests. Sofie has managed to find a way to be comfortable with the size she is and the story of how she achieved this veers between amusing and upsetting. But she didn't espouse anything I didn't already know. I admire her attitude towards her weight, her sexuality, her career and her life in general and I commend her and wish her every success. She did a great job narrating her book in English but there were a few punchlines I didn't quite get because of her accent, which isn't strong at all but on certain words got a bit sticky. Still, I couldn't narrate a book in Danish so credit to her is definitely due. I really wanted to absolutely love this book and ended up only quite liking it. But you give it a try, you might love it. You can't please everyone.

Eye-opening

As someone who is relatively well informed about the marginalisation if some groups (e.g. queer, black, disabled) I'm sad to say that I hadn't before realised the extent to which fat people suffer the same systemic problems and oppression and without being a legally protected group. This book really helped me question my own thoughts and prejudices and to empathise more with fat people. Highly recommended.

What an incredible amount of diatribe in one book!

Starting with a lecture on how we should view every person's sexuality by their own identification which, I presume we all have to divine from their eating habits to the direct put down of people of less weight.
Not everything has to be discussed in minute detail and acceptance is a concept of taking every person on their own merits and not to put them into boxes labelled by weight, sexuality, looks or anything else for that matter. We are all individuals with a mind on our own and the last time I looked, opinions ones forms oneself were not illegal...yet!
And for calling herself a comedienne.... so not funny at all!

A really good read.

I would really recommend the audiobook - Sophie's narration is brilliant. There is some sound advice as well as some excellent anecdotes. Some sections made me laugh outloud as I walked along (there are some parts of the human anatomy that definitely shouldn't come into contact with bleach for example). I hope she writes many more books and I will keep an eye out for her doing stand up.

Thought provoking

I almost gave up listening to this early on, because Sofie Hagan is quite "in your face" and can get pretty aggressive about her views, which often aren't the same as mine. I realised that, as a formerly "very obese" person (now in the overweight category) who isn't in the least tempted to backtrack down that road, I wouldn't share all her ideas.

After finishing listening to the end, I believe that this book does have something to offer anyone. It has really made me think, and I hope I won't forget what I've learned that might help me to make other people's lives better.

Amazing book! Informative, fun and important

A great book. Hearing Sofie Hagen read it herself was really entertaining - Debunking lots of the fatphobic narrative we get bombarded with with her amazing humour and wit.

You don't have to be fat to read this book either. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in feminism, challenging capatalism, human rights, wanting to be a good human...

An important book for our time but also fun.

It's a great book.

read it!!

for every shape and size this will most definitely help you!! and love Sofie, she's so funny!

comedy activist

This was a really honest and thought-provoking look at what it means to be fat, fatphobia, and the world of fat activism. Before reading this book, I had no clue about these terms or movements. Sofie provides a critical review of the history, politics, social constructs and moral attitudes towards being a person of size yet brings it to life and make it's very related with her own personal experience. The added touches of comedy, perfectly timed and placed, especially throughout the audiobook, made this a wonderful book to listen to, creating an experience of dipping your toe into her world and the world of fat activism. She has opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at life, both from a personal perspective, challenging my own stigma and self-criticism and my view and awareness of privilege and the challenges to still be overcome by so many marginalised groups in society which I will take into my work as a mental health nurse

THIS IS BRILLIANT

Happy Fat manages to be funny, moving, educational and revolutionary all at the same time. I raced through this, finding wisdom in every chapter (plus more mentions of Chris Pratt than I expected). I can not recommend this highly enough.

Listen to Sophie. That's all.

Sophie is a brilliant narrator who shares her experiences whilst inviting diverse voices to share the stage in what is typically an overwhelmingly white space. 👏