Shannon Graham on the optimism hidden in 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

Singer and saxophonist Shannon Graham makes a career out of defying expectations. Her nine-person pop ensemble, The Achromatics, creates songs that blend international influences from American to Latin America music. The resulting debut album, Give Me That Beat, was released in 2017.

Graham applies this open minded approach to her reading of Mona Awad's Canadian novel 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize.        

• 3 books to read if you loved 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

The changes that take more time

"I was in the library browsing through the shelves and the title of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl immediately stuck out to me. I had to pick it up. The heroine in the book goes from being overweight to underweight and everything in between. The thing that is so powerful for people who have not lived that life is that even when she is underweight, she still has all of the same self-confidence issues that she had when she was overweight. It's what she's been taught and what she's lived."

• Mona Awad: How I wrote 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

A story about learning, not lamenting

"I read 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl with my partner and he said, 'This book is so sad,' but I found it illuminating and very real. There is that touch of self-loathing in the heroine, but she also has a sense of humour, too. In the last chapter, which occurs later in the heroine's life, there is this sense of optimism and hope that if there was another chapter, something would lighten. There's a hint of a realization on the horizon."

Shannon Graham's comments have been edited and condensed.