Mireille Guiliano. French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure. London: Chatto & Windus, 2005 [Book review]

Frankly, it's hard to imagine that French women "get" anything in the grabby way the word is used in the title of Mireille Guiliano's book. French Women Don’t Get Fat is a discordant appellation for this self-help / autobiography crossover, its bluntness misrepresentative of Guilianoís carefully modulated plea for restrained pleasure. Or is that pleasured restraint? The je ne sais quoi of that most tantalising of prospective existences—"French Women"—uncomfortably receives the incongruity. Continental accoutrement of apple-pie American nous, the title's claim is bald, brassy and self- satisfied, but the title's subject represents pure aspiration. French Women Don’t Get Fat is the new transatlantic fusion.