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"I read this book in the 80's. The main character was poor (I think) and overweight. She learned basic French in school and went to France to live with a French family, who were on a tight budget. They looked down on her when she took extra food at mealtimes because that meant someone was going to have less food. So she took smaller portions and often went to bed hungry and cried herself to sleep. Also, this family only spoke in French and she didn't know very much so she stayed quiet. But eventually she learned to speak French more fluently and she lost weight. When she came back to America, she eventually opened her own fashion shop. I'm sure there were more things this woman did between coming back to American and opening her shop, but I can't remember them. I think the cover was black with red letters and I think it was a 1-word title, but not sure about that. I think it was between 400-500 pages."