Pam is married, has twins and is nearing forty. She is very overweight and is determined to be down to 8 1/2 stone by the time she reaches her forties. She is obsessed with food which you will gather from the opening chapter of her top fourteen favourite chocolates – which I might add she got completely wrong, who has a toffee coin in their top chocolates!!

The book is a satire look at one woman’s overweight life. Being a size 16 myself I never once felt that this book judged me, more I felt empathy for Pam who talks about how she thinks others perceive her, I’ve done this numerous times. Or what people must think when they see her eating, even that clothes shops don’t know how to cater for those with larger bodies.

I know nothing about the author as I don’t read newspapers so I wasn’t sure whether this was an outright novel or a tongue-in-cheek look at her own life. Either way, there are some hilarious moments in the story as well as some moments that make you stop and think about your own life.

I’ve never been a judgy person and I believe that every person has the right to look how they want to, whether that is skinny or fat. What I will say is just because you lose a lot of weight doesn’t mean that the problems outside of weight/health issues will disappear. 8 1/2 Stone is good at addressing this thought that a lot of people have. The grass is never greener.

If you are after something to give you a giggle and you don’t mind listening to one woman documenting her overweight life in graphic detail then this is the book to pick up.

Liz Jones, former editor-in-chief of Marie Claire – where she ran a high-profile campaign to ban skinny models – fashion editor at the Daily Mail, and now a columnist at the Mail on Sunday. Liz is the most shared, most commented on writer on MailOnline for ten years, with 69 million readers across the world.