How Never to Look Fat Again Review

Are you a fan of style guides? I love them, but sometimes I feel that the tips aren't useful. When you're over size 14, your needs vary slightly from those of smaller-framed women. Wardrobe challenges become more serious, sizing issues can become a disaster, and fit irritation is experienced on a larger scale. With that in mind, I tackled How to Never Look Fat Again by Charla Krupp.

I spent some time flipping through Krupp's book, and I knew that it would come in handy: each chapter of the book (dedicated to body challenge like the "Buddha Belly" or "Heavy Calves") had a special section dedicated to the over-14 crowd. Since it's hard to find specialized tips in most books, I was pleased to see not only recognition of our sizing issues, but valid tips to help us dress better as plus women.

The selling point of How to Never Look Fat Again, for me, is how effectively this fashion guide is laid out for our perusal. From "Broad Shoulders" to "Larger Feet," each chapter includes multiple problem solvers as well as high-quality pictures of both "before" and "after" studio styling shots.

Which brings me to my second favorite part of the book: the models in the book are of what many of us call "real women." Their models showing off "dos" and "don'ts" look like they are size 12/14 or 14/16, and it provides a good frame of reference for our own styling endeavors.

The back of How to Never Look Fat Again includes plus-size shopping resources to give you a kick-start. While some of them are not my personal favorites, they are all high-quality options to browse when you're shopping for each season.

There was one thing that bothered me in this book: the heavy use of the same brands, like Spanx. While Spanx are fantastic, they're not exactly a secret, so I would have appreciated seeing more variety in recommendations.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.