I Will Have an Army of Clones. We Will Be So Charming.

Tina Seamonster’s new book, I Will Have an Army of Clones. We Will Be So Charming., a collection of blog entries from her website, is an exploration of change. It maps with sweet intensity the shifts between weight gain and loss, pregnancy and childbirth. This is not, however, an online journal that is interesting only to the immediate family and friends of the blogger. Tina takes us through her struggles with tinted, punk rock, DIY glasses, determined to be seen (both through her blog site, as well as through the parading rainbow shades of her hair) while cherishing those who are not (by adopting a local panhandling woman as a surrogate grandmother).

Many books, magazines, television shows and the like deal with the trials of weight loss from a comfortable distance, recording the after-effects of a successful weight management plan through the eyes of a person happily transformed, or strategizing from the viewpoint of a nutritionist or a personal trainer, who are blissfully unaware of the real effort behind what Seamonster terms “The Great Smallening.” Seamonster’s entries take the reader into the struggle of the everyday, through a narrative vision that is anything but typical. However thrilled she is at unearthing the bones hidden underneath her previous weight, she is equally as fearful of losing it. “I worry that I won’t be pretty if I lose too much weight,” she says. “I will always be a big girl and I love that.”

Her biggest transformation manifests itself in the creation of new life. Catapulted into the world of duplicate motherhood, she champions her double pregnancy with cheerful determination. Rallying against a sometimes ambivalent doctor and the typical money trials of the majority of new young parents, Tina catalogues her experiences with a youthful confidence. Shape shifting Tina does not only alter her physical self, but also her imaginative self – transforming from archaeologist to sea captain, panda bear to geographer with ease between blog entries. Although the reader of Seamonster’s journey book form may feel immediate pangs of loss when faced with the end of its pages, Tina Seamonster’s personas (both physical and imaginative) continue playfully online; her punk rock stroll through motherhood still evolving with each entry.

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