Customer Reviews

Speed Shrinking

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4 star:		(6)
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This is an ideal combination for me. Susan Shapiro writing about one of the subjects that is closest to my heart - weight and addiction.

I feel in love with Shapiro when she wrote her "memoir" about trying to stop her various addictions and although this book is a novel, she picks up along of the main themes that she has used in her non fiction book.

In this one, our main character is now a "guru". She has managed to lose all her weight and is now the person who helps other people out there. She has surrounded herself by a huge support system (which is a great idea when you are battling addictions) but, as luck and the universe would have it, these people are all leaving her, in various degrees - which means she needs to find herself, among other things a new shrink - before her nightly binges threaten to envelop her and prevent her from making her appearance on TV.

This book is at times hilarious, poignant and always rings true, true, true! When the author describes the battles against binge eating and how this is just but a symptom of a bigger problem, I wanted to cry. I loved that Shapiro chose to make her main character strong (and weak) and willing, willing to do what she needed to do to stay in recovery.

This book is for everyone who has an addiction (or if you know someone who does) who wants to take a funny and poignant look at the situtation.

No victims need apply.

Speed Shrinking is a fun, cupcake-filled, search-for-a-shrink romp by noted memoirist Susan Shapiro, which also provides some sly looks at the business of book promotion, weight issues, father figures and very Manhattan mania. Self-help guru Julia Goodman should be at the top of her game, having conquered her many addictions through the help of Dr. Ness, her beloved therapist, found a hot husband, and written a bestselling book, Up in Smoke. But when her pregnant best friend leaves town, her husband is off to LA for work and her therapist, who, in many ways is both the hero and antihero of this offbeat love story, moves away, she feels alone, and turns to cupcakes for comfort. And shrinks, many, many shrinks.

She sets off to find the perfect therapist, who'll give her exactly what she needs (tough love), one who's covered by her health insurance, in a hilarious, neurotic journey where she ponders whether a cigar is just a cigar, hires a nutritionists, has occasional cupcake binges, and questions the premises she's built her life on. When she learns that her therapist may have betrayed her, she wonders whether he's worth the guru status she's given him. Meanwhile, she's competing with her fellow authors and warding off rumors that she's pregnant because she's gained so much weight.

This madcap journey will be appreciated by any woman who's ever worried about her weight, anyone who loves cupcakes, and anyone who's spent time on either side of a therapist's couch! Julia's wackiness has you rooting for her in her quest to get thin, and to finally get at the heart of her issues (though watching her breeze from one potential solution to another will give readers plenty of laughs even as it gives Julia a meltdown).

The main character in Speed Shrinking is a best friend I want to have. She devours junk food to make herself feel better about her loneliness and then cries about for days. Though Julia is at times as dysfunctional, her unashamed and insightful honesty in her quest for the perfect therapist is inspirational. I could read this book over and over. It opened me into the world of designer psychotherapy and had me dreaming of flavorful bakery goodness. I'm addicted to this book.

When I first came home with Susan Shapiro's compulsively funny novel, Speed Shrinking, about a diet guru who falls off the cupcake wagon, I made the mistake of pitching it on the bed and heading for a shower. Before I was thoroughly soaped, I heard peals of laughter coming from the bedroom. When I peaked in, my girlfriend was speed reading the book and hyper-ventilating from comic identification. Her ploy to steal it for herself: "This is such a woman's book. You're never going to get it like me." Nice try.

Regardless of reader gender, Speed Shrinking is an irresistible a book. From the start, Shapiro winds the main spring of her plot tight and then sends her protagonist, diet diva Julia Goodman, careening toward career fatality. As she readies for the release of Food Crazy-- her new book on controlling food addiction-- Julia's TV-director husband, best friend, and shrink all vacate Manhattan and Julia, triggering a high-caloric relapse and binging on the leftover hungers of a lifetime.

It's fear and self-loathing in the Big Apple as Julia piles on the pounds, prompts rumors of pregnancy and visions of scuttling the publication of her book. Searching for an appetite-surpressing savior, she burns through eight shrinks in eight days before Julia lands on Dr. Cigar's couch and speed walks into a final twist in Central Park. Though the protagonist's unrestrained narcissism may at times make you hope she gets her just desserts, by the end you'll be elated, sated, and touched by Julia's provisional recovery.

Bestselling self-help author Julia Goodman is almost finished with her latest book Food Crazy, which assists people in dealing with food addictions especially sugar. She knows once done, she will make the rounds of the talk show circuit selling her tome just like she did with successful Up in Smoke.

However, her own support group vanishes at a critical moment. Her tough love psychiatrist Dr. Ness moves out of town; her beloved spouse Jake is in Hollywood working on a film project; and her BFF Sarah has married and moved to Ohio. Panicking that she is alone, she goes on a cupcake binge. Now with the Today Show coming soon, she needs to crash diet or be the laughing stock of self help. To return to slim, she needs a new doctor so she tests eight in eight days in a SPEED SHRINKING that leaves even Julia breathless and still feeling overweight.

Although the plot device has been used more times in recent years than Julia weighs after her binge, she brings freshness to the charming story line with her panic to lose the belly in Guinness Book record time. Fans will enjoy Julia's frantic race as she runs through doctors and gurus while also boohooing her trio of support for deserting her just when sh needed them most. This is a winner as most readers can commiserate; including me who swears the cake hypnotically says "eat me" to the victim, moi.

Harriet Klausner

Susan Shapiro's Speed Shrinking is a hilarious race through a self help guru's battle with her anxieties. The heroine, Julia Goodman, is a loveable mess: a food-addiction expert who resorts to cupcake therapy when her husband, best friend, and shrink leave her alone in New York. Goodman's quest for a new therapist to help her quit sugar before her book is released leads her to face all her anxieties and confront her addiction to shrinks. Speed Shrinking is a fun and witty satire of our obsession with weight, shrinks, and the publishing industry.

What endeared Susan Shapiro's protagonist, Julia Goodman, to me was her combination of confidence and insecurity. She is so sure of herself professionally which counterbalances her personal pitfalls whether they be with her husband, her therapists, her best friend or proteges. As much as I enjoyed the comedic scenes where she's interviewing a handful of therapists and how she desperately tries to get someone to tell her that she can still lose weight if she eats the icing off the top of cupcakes, the best parts of the book for me were the character's (author's) wise insights into why people do what they do and feel how they feel.

MUST READ!! What a great, engaging, well-written, fun, funny, touching, blablabla book.
I couldn't wait to read the next chapter... and in fact, did something I Never do--- read the book in one sitting.
It's that good! Highly recommended to everyone! Thanks, Sue!

Once I started reading Speed Shrinking, I could not put it down. The perfect book to read over a weekend or by the pool at the resort this December. It is witty and captures food addiction with a sense of humor and urgency all rolled into one. The good news is that it did not set me up to binge on cupcakes but it did remind me of pulling an Entemann's cake out of the kitchen trash at 2 a.m. to eat with my NYC roommate many years ago. As suggested by the author, we also learned that pepper poured on left over cake is a must to avoid these addictive and neurotic behaviors. Author Shapiro captures these moments with ease and accuracy. A fun read. Makes me want to get a therapist!

Julia's a smart, successful self-help author who sees eight shrinks in eight days to help her take the weight off after a cupcake and sugar binge. She worries about her ballooning weight, feels out-of-control and sometimes lonely. Her readiness to conquer it all is inspiring. Along Julia's journey, you'll fall in love with her. Even if you can't relate to her urban, high-flying universe, you laugh, laugh, laugh. I'm happy I bought this book and would recommend it to all my girlfriends and even some dudes :-)