Wow. This chilling account of actress Portia de Rossi's struggle with an eating disorder was mesmerizing. I have to admit that I'm a sucker for celebrity memoirs (or any memoirs for that matter as you can probably tell by now) but admit that the reader can usually tell that they weren't actually written by the celebrity who has been credited. De Rossi on the other hand seems to be the real deal. As the immortal Augusten Burroughs says "De Rossi is... a fine writer with a sharp mind and substance."
De Rossi transports you into her once-crazed mind, describing herself in an extremely derogatory manner to clue the reader in to how she was feeling. You sink with her into the despair and the pain she experienced. As a child model she was told that she was too heavy, and from then on as she pursued her career in modeling and acting she put herself through grueling exercise and diet routines to attain the perfect image for her craft. As her popularity heightened while acting on the legal dramedy Ally McBeal she listened to the voice of the media (and the pessimistic whispers of her mind) and believed she could never be pretty enough.
When she reached her lowest she was on a bizarre diet of Jell-O, tuna, and artificial butter-spray that kept her daily calorie intake at less than 300 per day. As you can discover for yourself, she reaches such a low-point that it has a profound negative impact on her body, but not her career. When she had literally starved herself into a sickly figure her career was thriving. She was featured in tabloids as being sexy and desirable while glossing the covers of big magazines like Rolling Stone. De Rossi tells the remarkable lengths someone can go to in order to be "pretty."
Needless to say, there is a happy ending. De Rossi was able to recover, come out of the closet, and marry the woman of her dreams, Ellen DeGeneres, who she says showed her "what beauty is." The account she presents is at times a little redundant and there are a few typos in the book, oddly enough. Nonetheless, this book is well recommended for anyone, gay or straight, who has ever felt inadequate or unattractive.
No comments:
Post a Comment