Review of Weight of a Woman

Jelani Trotter · Post by **Jelani Trotter** » 31 Mar 2025, 06:41

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Weight of a Woman" by Judith Jackson-Pomeroy.]

5 out of 5 stars

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Sara Wolfe is a professor and an adjunct lecturer who works in the Department of Women’s Studies at a “No-Name University,” hoping to get into Wellesley for a fellowship. Sara has a unique relationship with her students from her seminars, where she diverges from the traditional, formal relationship associated with lecturers and their students. To foster this, she goes to Tin Palace, a bar, where she watches her students in a rock band—namely, Eyva and Seth—play and even has drinks with them, which her boyfriend, Tom, another professor from the university, does not understand and cannot seem to ease into.

Sara suffers from an eating and drinking disorder due to the fact that she so badly wants to fit into her designer jeans. She diets excessively, affecting her attitude toward food and making her obsessed with calories. This behavior is strange coming from a professor whom women go to when they are struggling with society's demand to be skinny. Also, Professor Sara has a crush on her student, Seth, a rock boy with issues of drug use and self-harm. Will Sara be able to get her fellowship? Will she admit to her eating disorders and get better? How did she handle her crush on her student, Seth, when the Wellesley fellowship had a decency clause? You can learn more from Judith Jackson-Pomeroy’s book, Weight of a Woman.

I love the writing style of the author. It had me glued to the book line by line and even playing out the discussions from each character in my head, down to their sitting arrangements at times. Each character has their own tone and behavior, which makes them very engaging. Sara is an intriguing character who makes you wince at times at what she is doing or saying, like, “Girl, what did you just do or say?” while holding your face in your hands as a reader. The author was so right to give a warning about it in the plot because you are truly going to facepalm at some of the things Sara and her friends do or say. Her friends are Professor Marco Gonzalvez (an award-winning poet) and Jane Curran (director of the campus-based Women’s Resource Center), who was also Sara’s therapist when she decided to get help.

I admire their friendship and the way there are little secrets among them—the way they look out for each other, especially Sara and Marco, who are always involved in one bad decision or another, like flirting with people they are not supposed to. Aside from making a few drunk mistakes here and there, Sara is a smart and friendly lecturer who, after many rejections, finally had her research published and received much praise. She's such a goal-getter—as long as food is not involved. I love the slow burn between Sara and Seth as they individually sort out their issues. Also, there are some feminist discussions and recommended books noted from Sara’s seminar classes. Read this book if you want to know them.

There are a few things I noticed that were not included, like their ages, the age difference between Sara and Seth, Sara’s rape backstory (as she is a rape survivor), and Seth’s past trauma and how it led to his present drug state. Also, I saw no errors, so it was perfectly edited. Sexual language and acts were used raw in the book, so if you have issues with this, you might want to skip it. Likewise, there was frequent use of profanity—if you have issues with this too, you might want to skip it.

The above does not affect my rating, so I give it 5 out of 5 stars. If you are interested in the world of women, this is suited for you. Women's issues like rape and patriarchy were discussed.

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Weight of a Woman
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Joseph Phoebe · Post by **Joseph Phoebe** » 14 Apr 2025, 02:38

In Weight of a Woman, Sara Wolfe’s informal camaraderie with students like Eyva and Seth at Tin Palace clashes poignantly with her hidden eating disorder and inappropriate crush, exposing a raw tension between her feminist ideals and personal vulnerabilities that complicates her pursuit of the Wellesley fellowship’s decency clause.

Kaidynn Frazier · Post by **Kaidynn Frazier** » 22 Apr 2025, 08:39

This book offers insights into a narrative that explores a professor’s struggle with eating disorders. Your review was really engaging and I just added this book to my collection.