Customer Reviews

Thin Is the New Happy

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I was really disappointed by this book. I am a eating disorder psychologist and I thought this book would offer some perspective, as in, the title is ironic and thin really is not the new happy. Instead this superficial book means exactly what the title says. Thin does equal happiness for her. As a child she was teased and abused, mostly by her mother, for being chubby. As an adult, she abuses herself in every way possible - diets, body hatred, drugs, alcohol. It seems her only redemption was losing a small amound of weight as an adult (appox 15 pounds) and becoming "thin enough" to like herself. The ultimate low in this book is a revenge fantasy where she imagines a former high school tormenter as now obese and stupid. For this author fat = stupid and a whole range of other negative stereotypes. I wish this woman had therapy instead of writing this book.

As someone who has struggled with my weight, dieted, and mainly, worried about my appearance, I've read plenty of weight loss memoirs, and will continue to do so, I'm sure. I can safely say that while Frankel's overall message (don't diet, eat what you want) isn't new, her approach, humor, frankness and willingness to dig deep are something unexpected.

Frankel starts with her mom pressuring her to lose weight as a child (sadly a very common scenario). She does, and immediately reaps the social benefits, but of course once she goes off her diet, the weight comes right back. This started her on her lifelong path of going up and down with her weight, something she only vows to stop when she realizes that her two daughters are approaching the age she was when weight became a central issue in her life.

It's in talking about her first husband's death that Frankel really shines here, not overdramatizing her story but sharing the real issues she dealt with. "Weight loss became my Vicodin, my Prozac. The red jeans were my delivery system. It took the edge off my pain. Shrinking calmed me, pleased me, gave me something to feel good about."

The other chapter that truly stands out is the third one about her mother, where she confronts her with the revelations Frankel's had about the roots of her behavior. The final exchange with her mom about her weight issues is illuminating. Far from seeing herself as part of the problem, her mother feels that she was protecting Valerie from a world that hates the overweight. Her mother's own food issues (she refuses to eat in public alone, even passing up Frankel's offer of $1,000 to sit at Starbucks for five minutes) come through clearly, but are not really the point; Frankel's acceptance of the fact that they will never see eye-to-eye is.

In some ways, what makes Thin is the New Happy so powerful aren't Frankel's tales of her highs and lows, but her relationships with those around her, from her parents to her two husbands to the classmates who teased her mercilessly. Each of them has a different perspective, ones that often clash quite extremely with her own.

Frankel doesn't back down, but she does, when confronting people like her mother or her former classmate, Z., let them have their say. A stray comment from her husband about her belly being big stays with her for five years (!) until she finally asks him about it.

Her adventures with What Not to Wear author Stacy London, who gives Frankel's tame, boring, baggy wardrobe a complete overhaul, are fun, as is her tale of posing nude for Self magazine; these stories are a welcome complement to the heavier material. Though the tone can sometimes be a bit too perky by the end, knowing Frankel's lifelong struggle makes it easy to cheer for her newfound happiness (though one does wonder if she would have the same level of optimism were she not to have dropped two dress sizes and twenty pounds). A fast but intense read, Thin is the New Happy is refreshingly blunt about sex, marriage, mother/daughter relationships, and food. Even if you've read umpteen books about diet and weight loss, this one's worth adding to your list.

I mostly liked this book. It was funny, entertaining, and at times, sad. Frankel writes well. This is a book you can breeze through. I could relate to Frankel's body image and self-esteem issues. Her obsession with her weight is something many women can relate to.

While Frankel uses a lot of self-deprecating humor, she also gets a tad preachy at times. Preachy may not be the correct word. Long-winded may be a better term. There is a section where she goes on about how she is a "striver" and has "dreams" (unlike some people she once knew)! I think that's something readers can deduce on their own: She went to Dartmouth, she worked for years at a major woman's magazine, she has written many published novels.

It seemed that Frankel was/is on a quest for self-actualization. For most of the book she seems open, forgiving, and willing to admit her flaws, but she is a tad snobby and self-righteous. When she meets, Z, an acquaintance from junior high that used to tease her unmercifully about her extra poundage, she speaks about him in such a mean-spirited way. She claims that she isn't any better than Z, but you get the overwhelming feeling that she does think she's better. She snottily proclaims him as "just a bundle of skin, a thoughtless consumer of earth's oxygen." I lost all respect for Frankel at this moment. (I wanted to drop the book, but I kept reading.) I can't help to view her as mean-spirited and unforgiving at the moment she trash-talks Z, who is now a 40- something year-old man. This entire section where she speaks about Z was a huge turn-off. Her views of a certain "soulless state", her snobby views that Paris and London are "predictable destinations". I had to laugh near the end when Frankel described a trip to Disney World in Orlando and Fisherman's Wharf. How terribly pedestrian, Frankel! You can almost forgive the author for rudely talking about Z. She was wounded by his words. But, I have to wonder how a person could be so unforgiving to a person that was 12, 13, or 14-years old when the transgressions occurred.

Overall, this was an entertaining read. I wish the author the best of luck with her efforts to be at peace with her body.

I picked up this book because I felt I could relate to the story, and hopefully learn something. I could relate to the events in this book, but I did not learn much of anything. My impression is that the author wrote this book to expose her mother's harsh judgment about her weight as a child. I can understand her anger, it very frustrating when someone will not even validate your feelings. However, the author is equally harsh to her mother in this book. In fact, it seems she even lost interest in the material when she found out her mother would not read it. The only bright spots are others advice, for example Stacy London. This book is not for women struggling with weight, it is for Valerie Frankel. It was interesting to me that others (her sister, her husband) would make comments to hint that she should get over herself. It did not appear that the author really got this message. Perhaps the only enlightenment this book offers is how unattractive self-absorption and bitterness is--even a size 6 can't help that.

There is a genuine insightful book here, somewhere, but it somehow got lost. Valerie Frankel decided to make her story as shallow as a magazine article in a woman's magazine. Serious issues get buried in breezy humor, and underneath it all is a lot of genuine anger that is masked as upbeat snarkiness.

Frankel's book starts out engagingly enough, and I empathized with her struggles and the bullying and cruelty she had to endure in school. Ultimately, though, her prose wears very thin.(Pun intended). As the book progresses, Frankel resorts to boasting, and comes across as a real snob. Yeah, her childhood tormenter Z. was a crude and hateful jerk, but Frankel seems to think the fact that she lives in the Northeast and not in the "soulless state" of Florida elevates her to cultural sainthood. As does her "striving" nature. Stuff like this cheapens what might have been an interesting memoir.

Everyday observations presented as if they're insights. A woman of average intelligence, humor, appearance and accomplishment spends a ton of energy trying to find a way in which she's superior to pretty much everyone she meets. If you take for granted that there are lots of people smarter, kinder, more accomplished and more attractive than you (regardless of their upbringing), as well as that there are lots of people less intelligent, accomplished, fun and attractive than you, you've already moved past this book.

My reaction to this book is less that I admire someone for putting herself out there than that I really wish she hadn't. Is it well written? It's okay--Valerie Frankel's strength lies more in being humorous than in being moving, and some readers probably like the conversational style (personally, I'm pretty tired of it, but maybe I read too many blogs). But my overwhelming reaction was to the amazing self-absorption of the woman. Yes, she had body issues, and there were reasons for that. Many of us do, but I didn't find her castigation of her mother and classmates particularly enlightening or helpful. I would have preferred that she exorcise those demons in therapy, in private. The more she revealed of herself, the shallower she seemed. By the end, when she described how her former nemesis wanted to enjoy life and play golf, then sniffed that she, herself, wouldn't be satisfied with such a mundane, meaningless life, I was actually laughing at her cluelessness. Go ahead, Valerie, pat yourself on the back every time you walk into the gym, about how deep and important your life is, and how you live at the center of the cultural universe. Gosh, us yokels in places like, well, anywhere but New York, are in awe of you.

Like others who have given this self-absorbed,shallow waste of paper low marks, I am at a loss to explain its popularity. This is not the sage and witty writing of a woman who has come to understand herself through personal struggle but rather the rant of a true narcissus who believes her wonderful self to be the sole victim of a world filled with shallow, cruel people. My advice to Ms. Frankel: Get over yourself and the size of your behind. Neither is all that appealing.

I guess if you've lived through a similar life experience, you would relate to this book better. I really thought this book would be better reading. She writes well and decribes her feelings almost effortlessly but to me, it wasn't what I expected.