Order of the Golden Sprout The New Robert Rankin Fan Club

Fat by Rob Grant - 4 out of 5.

Here we have the classic triple strand story. We have essentially three separate short stories with the chapters alternating between them all. This is my favourite type of story telling as, when written will, at the end of each chapter you just want to get back to that story thread again, causing you to rattle through the pages at a cracking pace.

Our three stars are Grenville Roberts, an overweight TV chef with anger management issues. Jeremy Slank, an advertising / PR chap who's thrown into the deep end at short notice. And Hayleigh Griffin, a young girl suffering from eating disorders & body dysmorphia. Grenville is the character who produces most of the laughs, mainly due to his anger at everyone & everything around him. Jeremy is the least interesting of the three, but he does act a a bit of a bridge, connecting the three stories together. Hayleigh's is a rather sad story of a kid struggling with media pressure & body image.

The book is sprinkled throughout with many references to what people perceive to be scientific fact when it comes to food & dieting, but in actuality we are all grossly misinformed in almost every respect when it comes to eating. Rob Grant seems to have done some research into this area & I believe most of the opinions held by his characters are in fact more factual that many of us would otherwise believe. This is a great read & I would recommend it to anyone who's read any of his stuff before or just to anyone who fancied a quick read with some light hearted moments. Though it's not all sweetness, as some aspects of Hayleigh's story certainly fall more into the darkly comic bracket.