Everybody can relate in some way | Thin Is the New Happy

I wanted to like this... | Thin Is the New Happy | Valerie Frankel

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	• Thin Is the New Happy Valerie Frankel St. Martin's Press, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

So honest and insightful

I think every woman will identify with Frankel's lifelong body-image struggles, about which she is gut-wrenchingly honest in this book. It's a brilliant, truthful path to achieving outer--and inner--peace and self esteem. A must read.

Everybody can relate in some way

A really interesting memoir about Frankel's lifetime issue with weight, body image, and dieting. Anybody (especially women) who has ever tried to lose weight will relate to this book in some way. Frankel goes deep, emotionally and psychologicaly to figure out why she continues to gain and lose weight. An eye-opening and good read!

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I wanted to like this...

I wanted to like "Thin is the New Happy." I was looking forward to reading it. There are parts of it that are quite readable and moments when I felt sympathy for the author, particularly when reading about her abusive childhood. Like millions of women (and probably a lot of men too) Frankel fixated on her weight and body image instead of dealing with life's uncertainties. This book is supposed to be about her journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance.

Overall I found the author lacked a consistent message. Just when she's determined to abandon making everything about her looks, she does something like pose nude to prove she's hot. How is that helping the problem? She's still on the same roller-coaster, being self-exultant one moment and self-hating the next. Why is it that women with professed low self-esteem often think so highly of themselves? I think it would take a pretty big ego to pose nude for a national magazine and call yourself "hot." Frankel does that, all the while talking about her self-hatred.

Frankel self-diagnoses as someone who is excessively "goal-oriented." I don't think that even begins to cover it. What Frankel seems most concerned with is having an extraordinary life. This comes up most notably when she interviews a childhood tormentor who once called her fat. She insists on pointing out how much more interesting her life is compared to his, when in fact I think they don't seem to be living very different lives. Why does she feel the need to think she's better than other people?

In the end, I found this book sad. What it showed me is not a woman gaining self-confidence but rather an example of how pointless competition brings out the worst in people. I suspect both Frankel and her tormentors are people who think happiness is a contact sport, and the last woman standing is the victor. It will be a great day when people move beyond this.

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A candid memoir

In "Thin is the New Happy," Valerie Frankel chronicled her struggle with dieting and her obsession to be thin. Valerie's mother had always been overly critical of her appearance, and more specifically her weight, and this has influenced how she viewed herself, and her constant yo-yo dieting. This was a memoir about how she overcame that obsession, and to learn to accept herself for who she really is.

Most women can probably identify themselves with Valerie, the need to be "thin", and the struggle with having positive self-image. This very candid memoir from a popular women's fiction author brought to light the issue that young women struggle with, and how this is a problem that needs to be addressed. This was a quick read - nothing new or insightful per se, but should appeal to women who has issues with their weight.

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?Val Frankel is a woman of amazing insight. . . . Read this, weep, and heal.?

?Stacy London, cohost of What Not to Wear

You?ve heard the phrase ?the mirror is not your friend.? For Valerie Frankel, the mirror was so much more than ?not a friend.? It was the mean girl who stole her lunch money, bitch-slapped her in the ladies? room, and cut the hair off her Barbie.

If you?re like 99.9 percent of women, the war you wage with yourself over your body image begins at the ripe age of eight, and the skirmishes are fought for the next eight decades. Sometimes you don?t even know when you?ve won. (How many of us have taken out a photo from high school and thought, ?Hey! I looked great?why didn?t I know it??) This book is for anyone who has spent most of her life on?or thinking about being on?a diet. It?s for anyone who ever wished for candlelight in dressing rooms. It?s for anyone who has ever owned a pair of ?fat pants.? In short, this book is for anyone who ever felt good or bad about themselves based on how they look.

Valerie Frankel, like most women, has spent most of her conscious life on a diet, thinking about a diet, ignoring a diet, or failing on a diet. At age eleven, her mother put Val on her first weight-loss program. As a teen, she was enrolled in Weight Watchers (for which she invented creative ditching methods). As a young woman, her world felt right only when she was able to zip a certain pair of jeans. Not wanting to pass this legacy on to her own daughters, Valerie set out to cleanse herself of her obsession. Thin Is the New Happy is the true story of one woman?s quest to exorcise her bad body-image demons, to uncover the truths behind what put them there, and to learn how to truly love herself. It?s a poignant, hilarious, and all-out honest account of one woman?s struggle with body image?the filter through which she?s always seen the world?and the way she ultimately overcame it.

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