Mirror, Mirror

Fat shaming. It’s so rooted in society and family that it often goes unnoticed. Sometimes, it wears the garb of concern – oh, you’ve put on so much weight; is everything okay? At other times, it’s downright cruel.

Ananya, the protagonist of Mirror, Mirror, faces the second kind. The words she hears echo through her head, making her recoil with disgust when she looks at herself in the mirror.
Miss Piggy.
Fat cow.
How did she never notice how fat and ugly she was? How could she have thought it was okay?

Mirror Mirror was pacy from start to end. That is something I love about Andaleeb Wajid’s writing: her books make you keep turning the pages, not noticing when one chapter ends and another begins. I found that with When She Went Away, which I read three years ago, and then again with Mirror, Mirror. While fat-shaming forms the centre of the story, the narrative steers away from being prescriptive. It holds up a mirror to the world, to the reader. This is what the society is like. What are you going to do about it?

Ananya’s friends insist that her body does not define who she is. But what do they know with their effortlessly perfect figures? Part of her blames her parents for never telling her to look in the mirror and see the truth. Worst of all is everything she reads about body positivity day after day. No one sees what she sees in the mirror.

The stark realisation that self-love comes from within was something that struck me over and over. We can take small steps. We can and do keep challenging social expectation, but casual, senseless cruelty leaves us reeling all the time.

The awkwardness and embarrassment of teenage relationships find their way into the story too, and the imperfections of the characters make the readers pause. Relationships are not simple and sweet. They aren’t always fraught with tension either. They’re all mixed up. People make mistakes and do foolish things that affect other people. Together with all the turbulence that makes being a young adult what it is, Mirror, Mirror tells a story that rings true and is wonderfully easy to read.