Customer Reviews

I'm Not the New Me

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

First things first: yes, in this book, Wendy McClure loses weight. And yes, she does engage in a fair bit of navel-gazing that seeks to elevate what is essentially ordinary into something grand and heroic. That being said, I would not call this a weight-loss memoir. The weight loss thing gives structure to the book, certainly, but it is not the ultimate point. It is most certainly not meant to inspire other people to lose weight, or even to justify McClure's own weight problems. Rather, it is a book about McClure's life at the cusp of 30 in Midwest America, living as an educated young fat woman trying to find an identity. This is not a book for someone looking for inspiration, or even a way to lose weight. McClure tells us that she herself is incredulous about, and perhaps even a little apprehensive toward, those who tell her her website has inspired them to go off and lose weight on their own. This is a book for fellow people who are or have been where McClure is. It is, ironically enough, a book about an identity beyond weight and weight loss.

McClure doesn't lose sight of the fact that she feels that she's buying into something by joining a group to lose weight. That cynicism is certainly refreshing. It keeps the book from plunging too far into cloying feel-good tripe, or from ascending too high into the sphere of the truly self-obsessed navel-gazing memoir. It's not that McClure advocates not improving oneself; rather, it's that she sees that there is more to the modern push to lose weight than is immediately apparent, and that finding out how to improve yourself without buying into the weight-loss culture is one of the trickier things to try to accomplish.

The plot meanders at times, and there is no great apotheosis of Wendy McClure awaiting readers at the end, but this is perhaps one of the most honest, unabashed books I've come across in quite some time. If you want a self-help book, this is not for you. If you want to step inside the life of Wendy McClure, and perhaps even feel some resonance with your own, then go and read this right away.

Caveat: This is the first "fat girl story" that I've read.
I expected it to be another Bridget Jones diary and it was not. I was pleasantly surprised by the respect that Wendy has for herself and that she didn't focus [at least her book] on changing for a man or for a reunion (cliche weight loss themes). The book is witty, funny, and not juvenile (for the most part) although the depression did remind me of my high school days as an "alternative"/psuedo-goth. I think Wendy did a decent job of depicting herself as a whole. Ultimately, I never felt pity for Wendy because she seems so cool (although health is a separate issue).

I have a little (compared to Wendy) weight to lose myself and I could relate to the "IRS Audit photographs". Her description was so vivid! Ultimately, this book was encouraging and really encouraged me to make an effort to get healthy without making me feel guilty.

The WW cards are awesome and I enjoy showing them to friends. :) Her site candyboots.com has more of the cards.

What a great book. You will absolutely die laughing at the Weight Watchers Menu Cards in the center section of the book. Get the web URL and visit the site to see even more cards. I love the way she exploits the props and themes of the photographs, not just the items. This stuff is hilarious.

Wendy McClure is a crack-up, but the girl is no slouch or one-trick pony. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, one of the country's most difficult programs to gain entry to. I'm so glad to see her using her excellent talent and skill for something so valuable: making me laugh until I pee on myself.

This book would be worth the money just for the circa 1970's Weight Watchers recipe cards that are reproduced within it.

But don't just buy it for that. Buy it because Wendy is whip-smart and tremendously funny, and because this book will make you think twice about the diet industry, food, and the relationships American woman have with both.

Wendy McClure's book is about all of the things my friends and I talk about all of the time--weight, friendship, dating, family--but she crystallizes it all in a far more articulate and funny way than we ever could. I laughed like crazy when reading about her adventures in online dating and felt genuinely sad when reading about her breakup with a boyfriend. She's got a terrific sense of humor, which is sometimes silly, sometimes campy, but always dead-on. I picked up this book because I was a fan of Wendy's website, poundy.com, but you don't have to know the site to love this book. Using the magic number that Wendy herself mentions early in the book, I would recommend this to any woman who has ever weighed more than 125 pounds!

Wendy McClure entertains and charms her audience with a collection of witty, beautiful, and funny tales regarding her personal weight loss battle in "I'm not the New Me." McClure begins by telling her audience that every fat girl has a fat story about the trauma that caused the fat, but that she will spare us that recollection. Instead, McClure treats us to a bevy of hysterical anecdotes about her personal weight struggles, love life challenges, and family dysfunction.

I found "I'm not the new me" to be delightful. McClure's writing is very reminiscent of Laurie Notaro, of whom I am a huge fan. I thought this book was engaging and personal, while being funny and vulnerable. I do hope that McClure writes additional works, because I am really in love with her humor and writing style.

I highly recommend this book!

This is a fast-moving, laugh-out-loud-even-when-you're-the-only-one-in-the-house book. But it's so much more than just another funny fat-girl book. It's the story of a smart, iconoclastic, woman making her way through the shoals of the post-college years when everyone, including her, is waiting for her to "live up to her potential." It's about dating, karaoke, friends, therapy, parents, work--all discussed with insight, honesty and humor.

This is also one of the best books I've seen about the relationship between internet relationships and "real life." My first laugh-out-loud moment came on page 7.
"I'm in Vegas because of a website. I got here through the Internet. It's a little hard to explain that to other people. You start out telling someone, 'Okay, so there's this website,' and that you know a few people through it, and as you're talking he or she will tilt his/her head like a dog who's heard something you can't hear, and apparently, that something is your own voice saying La, la, la, I have a magical pretend life."

I don't know where McClure will go from here (see, even when you "live up to your potential" and write a great book it only adds to the pressure), but I know I'll want to read about it.

I read this book over the course of two nights and didn't want it to end. But when I did I was surprised in a really nice way. McClure's writing is fresh and candid yet also sweet and sometimes melancholy. She's not afraid to put her emotions on the page - the pretty ones as well as those the rest of us usually try to hide. I don't think there's anyone - fat, skinny or in-between - who couldn't relate to McClure's narrative about love, loss, friendships and body image.

Wendy McClure is my new hero. Transforming women's most intimate struggles and insecurities into the subject of pure hilarity and fun, I wholeheartedly commiserated with Wendy's ill-starred diet regimens and dating disasters...as addictive as a bag of Funyuns, without all those nasty calories.

Blogging and online diaries are a very popular thing these days. Nearly everyone has something to say. "I'm Not the New Me" by Wendy McClure is a memoir based on the online journal she kept to (sort-of) track her weight loss. This book chronicles how Wendy lost over 25 pounds mostly using the Weight Watchers system. She makes clear that she was adamantly against all the diet type things and advice that everyone always gave her. Through the course of the story, we learn how Wendy came about to deciding to lose weight and putting her website online; how she had a couple of serious relationships that fell apart; how she learned through friends that she wasn't truly "ready" to lose all of her weight. And much more.

Laid out in short chapters that occasionally go from present to past tense, there are even some funny weight-watcher cards in the middle of the book that make fun of the horrible diet "dishes" that are supposed to be healthy.

For the most part this was a semi-enjoyable read. I didn't laugh hysterically at anything in the novel as some other readers did; for some reason, a lot of the supposed humor fell flat. But the book had its funny moments. Wendy is an unusual character, and this book is well-written.

The main thing about this novel that I came away with, however, was that the main character seems to almost not have a likeable personality. I mean, she has a very dry sense of humor, but sometimes things she said that were supposed to be funny just weren't. She comes off at times as though she is very bitter. There was one very disturbing chapter in the novel where Wendy gets upset that someone tells her she looks much nicer since she'd lost some weight. She ends up telling the person angrily that she lost it due to cancer. I think that was supposed to be funny (since she didn't have cancer), but I just didn't find it amusing in the least. As a matter of fact, I found it to be in very poor taste.

It is definitely possible that I just didn't "get" the humor in this book, or the meaning of it either. Although I tried.

Overall, however, this is an interesting and amusing read that I recommend to anyone who has ever had to struggle with their weight.