Big Girl

Big Girl is a novel by the American writer Danielle Steel, published by Delacorte Press on 23 February 2010. It is her eightieth novel.

Victoria Dawson grows up in a family that values appearance above everything else, in a city where that standard is applied to children as well as adults. Her father is tall and slim, her mother is immaculate and critical, and both are underwhelmed by their firstborn, whose looks they discuss in her hearing. Her younger sister is the child they can be proud of, and Victoria is left to work out what she thinks of herself in a house where she is described as a practice run. The novel follows her out of that family and into her own life, which involves leaving the city, finding work and deciding how much of her parents' judgements she is prepared to carry with her. Steel writes about the things people do to the self-image of the children who do not fit the family story.

The book is one of a long series of novels by Steel dealing with family expectations and the work of growing out of them.