Description
Almost nobody knows that he isn't coming home.
Tom is the creator of Thursday--a semi-autobiographical webcomic, turned bestselling graphic novel, turned international phenomenon.
Semi-autobiographical. That means there's a character in this movie based on Cherry... "Baby."
Wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned Baby.
Cherry never wanted this. No fat girl wants to see herself caricatured on the page--let alone on the big screen. But there's no getting away from it. Baby looks so much like Cherry that strangers recognize her at the grocery store.
While her soon-to-be ex-husband is in Los Angeles getting rich and famous and being the Internet's latest boyfriend, Cherry is stuck in Omaha taking care of the dog he always wanted and the house they were going to raise a family in...and wondering who she's supposed to be without him.
Cherry had promised to love Tom through thick and thin.
She'd meant it.
One night, Cherry decides to leave all her problems, including Tom's overgrown puppy, at home. She ventures out to see her favorite band play her favorite album...and someone recognizes her from across the room.
Russ Sutton knew Cherry when she was a young art student with a fondness for pin-up dresses and patent leather heels. Before Tom.
Russ knows Cherry. He likes Cherry.
And best of all...he's never heard of Thursday.
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Firstly, I need to say I didn't know about any controversy about the author prior to reading this and had I known? I wouldn't have begun Cherry Baby in the first place… However, here I am. I finished Cherry Baby and by chance saw some posts talking about the author but I want to clarify whilst this will be my first and last Rainbow Rowell book? It’s based on me feeling as though I was lied to by both the synopsis and the quote from the New York Times. Not what I saw online.I thought that this would be a story of how Cherry rebuilds her life in the wake of a divorce, that there would be moments that felt empowering and perhaps we’d see her find a romance when she least expects it. Something that would be enjoyable and engaging - and have the reader cheering on this leading lady as she grows and recovers from heartbreak. Instead, I found Cherry to be an infuriating character who seemed to not be able to relate to her husband and takes things he says out of context so whilst I thought I’d be cheering her on from being hurt - thanks to that misleading synopsis - I wanted to berate her for her actions. She has a husband who would do anything she asks, and respects her wishes even to the detriment of his own happiness and then she blames him. But I thought perhaps I was misunderstanding things, Cherry is described as being a size 18, so a plus sized character and she does carry some of the mental struggles that come from being a bigger female in society which can be mentally debilitating but she also weaponises her upset and anxiety over it. The author also doesn’t let you forget that she’s plus-sized or fat because it’s brought up in every scenario to the point it feels fatphobic and unpleasant to see. We get it. She’s a plus sized character and we don’t have the memory of a gold fish so you don’t need it to appear all the time! We also don’t need it to feel like an advert for GLP-1 either which this did too. I really don’t know how a book that makes you think Cherry is a woman worthy of more, can be misogynistic, fatphobic and deeply unpleasant to read. Her husband Tom deserves better, so to a degree does Russ who sadly has the personality of a plank of wood. The only redeeming character in the whole book, was Stevie Nicks the dog and they deserve better humans in her life.