LIZ: BOOK #44

Dear Diary By Lesley Arfin

288 pages

Completed 12/23/10

Vice contributor Lesley Arfin revisits her diary, tracking her downward spiral from pre-adolescent self-esteem-less girl to heroin-addicted twenty-something, this book's concept intrigued me. Arfin tracks down and interviews the subjects of her entries. This seemed to be the perfect book for me, a lover of addiction/recovery memoirs, a diary format, a tell-all. However, I was pretty disappointed.

Not as scandalous or gut-wrenching as I had imagined, and at times, annoying. The woe-is-me entries from most of her adolescence were exhausting, and when re-connections from her past didn't pan out, I felt myself not even remotely interested. Most memoirs, on the other hand, have me looking up the author online when I am finished reading, wanting to know more. This one, disappointingly, didn't pique any interest at all.

I suppose I thought I would find this memoir juicier, funnier, and more relatable. Instead, I found myself relieved when it was over. I would have been more interested if I picked up a random diary and suffered through it.

LIZ: BOOK #5

Thin Is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel

256 pages

Completed 1/26/10


Recently began a new workout and diet regime, and was inspired to pick this memoir up - mostly because of the cover. Guilty again. What I thought would be a comical journey through a lifetime of weight struggle stories actually turned out to be more of a self-help book; not my thing.

Being put on her first diet at 11 and feeling the thrill that came with being thinner, Frankel proceeds through the rest of her life ranging in size from 6 to 22 on and off a variety of diets, weight loss programs, denial, and obsession. Now in her forties with two daughters, Frankel decides to shed not pounds this time, but her obsessive behavior surrounding dieting and weight.

Frankel's quest to rid herself of her self-critical body obsession while tackling the root cause of it just didn't reel me in as I had hoped. More of a cathartic book for her it seemed, and equally boring for me.