Between the Covers :: 'The Diet Starts on Monday' by Tamar Chnorokian

...this book has the guts to make it's protagonist fairly unpleasant at the same time as it has you rooting for her to get a little happiness. 

Picking up YA fiction when you are not a young adult should always be accompanied by a degree of critical caution. I'm not particularly enraptured by dub-step either, but I am wise enough to recognise that I am not the target audience.

While I'm never going to be a wide reader of YA fiction, I like to enjoy the forays that I take whilst keeping an open mind about how they contribute to the genre as a whole. And as a genre that spans genres YA seems to struggling to emerge as something more than just inspirationally superhuman adolescents, battling to the end.

Happily The Diet Starts on Monday goes further; offering a tantalizing insight into a realm almost exotic in Australian fiction: Western Sydney. Further it confronts teen bullshit in a thought provoking way, and while it may not always be unique that is hardly the fault of the author; teenagers just tend to perpetrate the same awful crap from generation to generation.

The premise of The Diet Starts on Monday is a fairly standard Cinderella plot line...

Zara Hagopian has a crush on the hot guy at school, but he barely notices her. Maybe it's important that his name is Pablo, that he's a twin and has dreamy eyes and caramel skin. Probably not though as his role is to be the raison d'être for Zara's transformation.

This is not your standard rags to riches transformation however. See Zara is a size 22 and it is unfair to say that she is not noticed. More correctly she enjoys the full attention (and venom & vitriol) we come to expect from insecure teenagers. I'm almost certain life was like this when I was at school and Tamar Chnorhokian ably brings it to life. Trigger warning for formerly fat kids!

Zara's journey raises a lot of issues around societies cult of image and fashion. As she resolves then fails then resolves again to lose weight all for a guy I admit I wondered whether this wasn't just reinforcing the message that girls are for looking at. But if Chnorhokian had presented this differently she would have been ignoring the reality of a lot of young women struggling with who they are in a world that wasn't built for their success.

At least this book has the guts to make it's protagonist fairly unpleasant at the same time as it has you rooting for her to get a little happiness. Because Zara is not simply a princess hidden under a tatty dress. She has a strong family tradition in the Armenian community and must balance her loyalties with her need to be a kid amongst others, all with strong communities. She also must confront the reasons behind her sadness and her weight, before she can accept the antithesis of either.

I didn't like Zara for a large portion of this book, at times wanting to scream at her for the stupid mistakes she making. I also worried that any victory that she felt was pyrrhic. But for that to happen she must have struck me in some way, and that means the novel worked.

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Tamar Chnorhokian and The Diet Starts on Monday emerged through the Western Sydney Sweatshop collective. Their philosophy is to empower and embolden their area through stories and bring these stories to a wider audience who perhaps think of Western Sydney as the bit without the beaches.

This is an accomplished effort to emerge from their workshops and augers well for future offerings...


For the past eighteen months I have been a producer and presenter on 'Final Draft', 2SER 107.3FM's flagship literature program. Between the Covers is my attempt to share some of this wonderful world of books and writing...

You can check out my interview with Tamar Chnorhokian and Mohammed Ahmad from Sweatshop on Final Draft's Podcast page on 2SER.com
Join me on Twitter @rightzblock
Catch me on Goodreads... goodreads.com/AndrewPople