Whenever Blacklight and I trek down to see my family we end up in McMansion Land with my battered Honda Civic looking like a child’s toy left out on the street. And when we see Clan Blacklight, we pass by a church so huge it looks more like an office building for Company X versus a house of worship. And when Blacklight asks me “why?” I can stop the lecture on Modern America and hand him Sarah Z. Wexler’s Living Large: From SUVs to Double Ds, Why Going Bigger Isn’t Always Better.

Child of green parents, Sarah Wexler explores the world of mega-churches, big box shopping, SUVs, plastic surgery, houses and more. You can’t step out the door and go about your daily business without encountering something oversized. Heck, every day on the way back and forth to work I’m stuck behind at least one SUV. And the last time I looked, the Tiffany’s at the mall didn’t have tiny little diamond chips in their display windows.

As she explores each facet of the living large American life, Wexler goes from being reserved to almost being sucked into the hype. A 2 plus carat diamond transforms her fingers into something from a advertisement. Fitting a sports bra with D cup implants changes her mirror image into something riper yet sleeker.

But the living large life comes with a downside. The young man going on a $3,000 shopping spree at Best Buy isn’t running around wildly happy but trying to transform his bedroom from a virtual prison into something welcoming as he slowly dies from cancer. Friends are going into debt to fills their bodies with sacs of fluid to try and fill holes in their lives. Churches are so big that unless you connect with a group you’ll most likely leave the fold.

To live large in America is like being on the set of an old Hollywood film. The facades are big, bright, shiny and lovely, but looking out on the street from the back is a whole other story.