Customer Reviews

Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The story of a rise and fall and rise of a twenty-two-year old American model could've been lame in so, so many ways. I mean, what does someone this young have to say? A lot, actually. Hungry is gripping and wise and funny and thoughtful and provocative and also, I felt like I was getting a far truer glimpse of the fashion industry than I ever get from fare like America's Top Model, The Devil Wears Prada, and even Project Runway. It wasn't always such a nice glimpse, either. The ingrained bias (ahem, hatred) of not just large but regular-sized bodies was pretty chilling, and reading this book, it's hard to tell whether that bias flows from fashion to mainstream culture or back or whether it's one anorexic twisted cycle. But, it's a book with a happy ending. Cream rises to the top. So, it turns out, does beauty. When Crystal decides to commit that revolutionary act and eat lunch (a healthy lunch, a salad with fish!) and let her body grow to its natural size, her body blooms, and her career takes off. You'll be cheering as you read her funny, smartly self aware account of her amazing (so far) career and life.

I walked by this book at Borders, and immediately felt drawn to it. I picked it up, sat on the floor, and did not move until I finished the whole thing. This young lady has so much wisdom to offer. It was so amazing to read her journey to becoming the confident, self-assured woman she is now. I'm willing to bet that everyone out there has, at one time or another, tried to ram their square-pegged self into a round hole... and it is so overwhelmingly gratifying to read the story of someone who came out the other end of that to live their dreams. What could be more inspirational?? I mean, who hasn't said, "Oh, if only I work hard enough, then I'll be good enough"? Crystal demonstrates that we are good enough as we are.. and once we realize that and embrace it, magic starts to happen. I believe that's the message of this book. I felt like I was walking on air after I left the bookstore. On my way home, I went and bought myself a bouquet of beautiful flowers :-)

Wow. I couldn't put this down. I never tried to be a model, but had a serious eating disorder when I was in high school (30 years ago!), and Renn's book brought it all back to me. It's very well-written and moves along at a good clip, without a lot of padding. I actually would have given it 4.5 stars if I could, because of two things: 1) There could have been more pictures. Crystal talks at length about many shoots for Vogue, etc. without including any photo, and I was dying to know what they looked like. (Maybe it was a copyright issue?)
2) Her newfound self-esteem sometimes gets a little over-the-top near the end ("I'm so sexy, I'm so hot," etc.).
But on the whole, I really recommend this. She actually doesn't slam the fashion industry as hard as I thought she would -- in fact, she acknowledges that sometimes people told her she was too thin -- and she mostly blames herself for nearly starving to death.
I saw her on one of the morning TV shows and she came across as quite smart as well as gorgeous. Way to go, Crystal!

I think some people are missing the point of the book. The book is not to say that it is "OK" to be obese, and she is not endorsing weight gain. The message is to feel comfortable with who you are/who you are supposed to be. She tried to make herself something she wasn't by starving herself. Once she realized she was killing herself, emotionally and physically, she turned her life around and came to a point where she was herself, comfortable and happy. Crystal is a 12/14, which is average in America, yes. And sure, if she gained weight and were to be a size 16 she still wouldn't be obese, but she's not claiming that she suffers from obesity, nor is she claiming that she would be if she were to gain a little more weight. The moral of this story is to show women that beauty radiates from loving yourself and in order to love yourself you must feel comfortable and confident. For women, that starts with your body.

I adore this book 110%!

I was more impressed with this book than I thought I would be. Unfortunately, prior to reading the book, I didn't know a lot about Crystal and I didn't automatically assume she was smart. I was pleasantly surprised at her wit and intelligence - she has a smart use of vocabulary and there is a good balance between trying to drive sense into her audience about eating disorders and body image problems in society, in conjunction with her own story woven in.

I would definitely recommend this book to other reads. It is a positive and inspiring journey of a beautiful woman. It could also be used as an easy-to-read and understand learning-tool for family and friends who need to become acquainted with the world of eating disorders.

I don't think that I will ever be able to do this book enough justice, but I will try.

To be honest, I haven't followed the modeling world for some time. I used to read all of the magazines and watched Style with Elsa Klensch religiously.

But years have passed since that time, and I had never heard of model Crystal Renn. I was unaware of her story.

Crystal was raised by her grandmother when her own mother abandoned her. Being abandoned or rejected by a parent often leads to feelings of inadequacy, as no matter how much reassurance from others you receive that you are worthy of love, it is still a blow to your psyche. Crystal was no different, and she developed a need to dominate whatever activity she chose, whether it be student council president or cheerleading or modeling.

Crystal didn't want to just be a model in a catalog. She wanted the runways and the Vogue covers. In order to do this, she was told that her hips would have to get down to 34". This meant that she, at 5'9" would need to drop down to 110 lbs. She had to lose 60 lbs.

Of course, given her overachiever demeanor, she went beyond this. She exercised for 8 hours a day on the weekends. She ate lettuce, chewed gum, and smoked. And she eventually found herself at 95lbs.

You don't have to be a budding model to feel that you don't have the right to take up space. ~ Crystal Renn.

I wanted to be less, always less. I wanted to be as barely there as possible. ~ Crystal Renn

I wonder whether today's mania for super-thin, wide-eyed, less powerful-looking girls is tied to fear of female strength. Today's girls take up less space, literally and metaphorically. ~Crystal Renn

And yet, she wasn't successful at that weight. She was a shell of a person at that point and no one wanted to hire her because of her lack of spark and energy.

You can be as beautiful as anything, but if you can't show people a little of your soul, you'll never make it. It wasn't until I became the weight I was meant to be that I figured that out. ~ Crystal Renn

The stereotype of models is that we're brain-dead, but some of us are just starving. ~ Crystal Renn

Eventually, Crystal's body fought back and started gaining weight on its own, no matter how hard she tried to keep her weight down.

Crystal began to learn about how our bodies are designed and why some people are destined to be size 0 naturally and others are not. I have to agree with her assertions, as I think it's easy to tell when someone is naturally thin. I know people who are very thin and petite, but not skin and bones. I know some folks who are larger, yet have a nice defined figure.

When we diet to lose weight, we have to steamroll over the weight our genes want us to be, disregard the hunger pangs that won't go away as we dip below the size that's normal for us, ignore the marketing of junk food and the prevalence of giant slabs of meat and glugs of high-fructose corn syrup and the hugeness of most portion sizes. We may have to struggle to find fresh, affordable food, which isn't accessible in many neighborhoods. We have to find the time to cook and walk more. We blame ourselves for failing to lose weight and we never think, Gee, if almost everyone who loses weight gains it back, maybe the problem is with the concept of dieting, not with individuals. ~ Crystal Renn

Crystal talks about studies that have shown people who are not overweight have a difficult time gaining weight, even when they are told to do so. They have to eat around 10,000 calories per day to put on weight and maintain it.

Yet some people can't lose weight until they cut their calories drastically. And so, the conclusion is, that there is a genetic difference between people who are thin and people who are overweight.

She also discusses the bashing that overweight people are taking in our society now. This part of the book is rather involved, but very informative. I'll just give you with a taste of it:

No one has established a causal relationship between weight and ill health. Are people fat because they're unhealthy or unhealthy because they're fat? Bacon (a researcher) shows the difference between the two with an example: Bald men have a higher incidence of heart disease than men with a full head of hair. However, this doesn't mean that baldness causes heart disease or that hair protects against heart disease. (And no one would suggest that bald men dig deep, show some damn discipline, and grow some hair.) ~ Crystal Renn

Eventually, Crystal's body weight settled in at what was healthy for her, which was about what she weighed before she started starving herself to fit in to the "straight" modeling world. Yes, she is a size 10/12 now and that is considered Plus sized in the modeling world. But she has broken through many of the barriers and appeared on Vogue covers around the world.

If you couldn't tell, I absolutely adore this book and its author. I think that it's one of the most important books I've ever read. Crystal Renn is only 24, but she has already learned a great deal about body acceptance and what works for her. That she can share this very personal journey in such an accessible way is truly amazing. This should be required reading for everyone, as it will change the way people think about our genetic appearances.

The beautiful Crystal Renn, one of the most successful "plus-size" models working today, has forged a new path in her own "niche" of modeling, presenting an image that is not meant to make you think about your mom, your sister, or the sweet (read: asexual) girl next door.

However, her previous attempt to get into the modeling industry (as what she refers to as a "straight-sized" model) was marked not only by lack of professional success but by one instance of self-induced vomiting, starvation, and obsessive exercize.

This is her story of how she overcame her disordered life and, in the process, found success in her chosen field and happiness in her personal life.

While making it clear that she continues to advocate healthy eating and exercise, she cites statistics that show how the BMI (Body Mass Index) numbers have been manipulated over the years to include more people - herself and some other plus-size models included - in the category of "overweight" or "obese". She also makes the case that we are each genetically predisposed to be a certain size and body-type, and when we try to force ourselves down to an unnaturally low weight (unnatural for our particular type, that is), we begin to crave more food (mostly of the fatty, unhealthy variety) and feel sluggish (too tired to work out!)

In her chapter about rediscovering and reclaiming her sexuality, and meeting and marrying her husband, she cites statistics about women who struggle with some type of dysfunction that is actually rooted in their attitude toward their own bodies and makes the case for a link between physical activity and an overall positive self image regardless of one's natural shape or size.

The point she made repeatedly that struck home with me, however, was that food and eating should be one of the most pleasureable aspects of our lives - not something we obsess and agonize over on a daily basis. She recounts how she was embarassed to eat in front of other people but now her husband enjoys watching her eat!

Overall, I recommend this book. It will inspire you and possibly cause you to make some adjustments in your attitude and body image, and you will enjoy her sense of humor - her one-line response to a particular stylist who clearly did not enjoy working with her and reportedly ranted and raved later about "having to style a fat girl" is priceless.

Cheers.

This is the biography of a young girl who embarks upon a modeling career and for the first half of the book struggles with being thin and not eating. We live her aversion to food alongside her in this book and then towards the end are invigorated when she accepts herself in a full figure and in a sense accepts all of us. Her voice in the book comes across as brusque and her choice of words are often a little shocking. However, I still found the book worth the read. In-between her memoirs and recollections there are some scientific figures that are informative. Specifically for me was the story of how the obesity epidemic in America is really a result of the people playing with the BMI figures and just changing the standard. America is really probably still the same. I find myself agreeing with many of the things she says in the book, especially how the ultra-thin standard for women is a way of holding us women down. Because if we focus solely on being underweight, then we aren't working to affect change. And I especially enjoyed the latter half of the book where her voice becomes more optimistic. I feel after reading this book that models like her, who represent real women more, can help us all with our misplaced poor self-image. I felt good after reading this book and I recommend it to everyone, especially women like me who have suffered with the struggle to meet the impossible waif standard.

Finally a book that addresses it all. This book is about the joy that can come from refusing to let others be your sense of self. She deals primarily with her struggle against anorexia but for once her story isn't about being the victim. Crystal Renn is not a passive woman. Her sense of humor and quick wit are as youthful as she is, but with a serenity not often credited to a 23 year old. This book deals with some dark subject matter, but it's not depressing. It's thoughtful and thought provoking and I found myself laughing more than once. An incredible read.

Be yourself! This book provides a necessary message in our shallow, Heidi Montage-plastic surgery, sad culture. You can be healthy, be yourself and be sexy! All women are beautiful and can be their best. The women I know who starve themselves aren't happy. At all. They are obsessed with what (they think) people think about them and lack confidence. The people I know who eat crappy fast food and are overweight and nutrition-starved are equally unhappy.

But the point is that you accept yourself first and people will respect you. Confidence attracts. Read this well-articulated biography and share the message. Anybody who promotes "size zero" should be tarred and feathered!