Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope

This memoir is amazing so far. Vivid and clever writing, Jenny Lauren is a unique person and it is so sad how her eating disorder brings her down in those adolescent years.. but it is enlightening to read how she recovered from it. She does not skip the details, she includes everything in her account, the gruesome and the triumphant. Buy it.

I really enjoyed this memoir because it was written very creatively and candidly, not just as a boring linear account. Ms Lauren really dug into her own life and memories to write a book that makes you feel like you are experiencing her life and recovery with her. Sometimes it hurts because it is incredibly painful and dark,(I had an eating disorder as a teen that I wasted too many years on myself) and some times it is hard not too laugh with her because of her biting wit. I became nostalgic at times for my own childhood and how many occasions I think I could have done something differently too. As I read I felt I could relate to many of her experiences searching to find a sense of well-being, for hope and answers. I really recommend this memoir because it is not only a fascinating read but a sensitive book. Graphic at times, but thats what makes it so real and powerful. I was the most impressed by the choices she made to reveal things about her family, as well as her "fashion family" but to remain entirely loyal and show her strong love and eventual acceptance of what she grew up with.

For those unkind enough to take Jenny to task for her relationship to Ralph Lauren, it only makes it apparent that they have prejudice. And since when does the fact that many people have problems and have talked or written about them preclude others from telling theirs? Having read many hundreds of books as a literary publicist (and avid reader in general), this book could have been written by Anyone USA, and the memoir would be every bit as powerful, riveting, poignant and revealing. But that her life is further complicated by her relationship to a fashion icon and therefore expectation (whether actual or self-imposed), Jenny has the right to explore all that has shaped and informed her life. We all have become who we are through family, society, and cultural influences and how we react to our unique set of circumstances. I loved this book (read it in two evenings) and applaude the author for allowing us to share her very human journey, one that is far from over. Jenny's health is compromised, she is in constant pain--a high price for her mistakes and wiring. Anyone who would begrudge her the telling of her story fails the criteria in being a "human" being.

I was mesmerized by Ms. Lauren's honest, humorous and courageous depiction of her journey through life. This is not a tell-all, rather it is the complex story of a woman who feels deeply and expresses what it is like to grow up in a society where the pressures to be beautiful and thin over-take health and at times reason. I deeply felt for Ms. Lauren's struggles but with her self-effacing homour and poignant insightfulness I was drawn to her courage to overcome her pain and disease and to find the beauty in life and the people around her. This is a book that for me, touches on spirituality, the closeness of family (and the need to separate) the complex pressures of an unforgiving media driven society, and the journey of an intelligent woman who overcomes her demons to celebrate the beauty and richness of life. I applaud Ms. Lauren's bravery to tackle not only her issues with a consuming eating disorder, but for writing it in an honest, and at times hysterically funny way. This is a very important book, not only for young girls but for any one who has ever counted calories, struggled with chronic pain, abusive relationships, sought spirituality or is just interested in the struggles and journey of what it is to be profoundly human.

The author provides a harrowing insightful look from within of an individual suffering from the food disorder bulimia. When Jenny was ten she went to camp where she decided that she was to fat in comparison to her peers; she stopped eating until she was tossed from camp and her loving caring parents took her home. In ninth grade, Jenny, weighing under a hundred pounds, received advice on how to eat and lose weight: use ipecac. Over the next decade or so, she would continue her pattern of eating and puking until she wrecked her digestive system, something her doctors failed to understand.Though gripping and incredibly discerning, this is not an easy biography to digest as .the author literally punished her body to remain ultra unhealthily thin. Still, Ms. Lauren furbishes warning signs that frustrated and non-understanding family members often miss and the medical community ignores with the typical solution being the chemical fix. The scary part is that it is obvious that her family, especially her parents truly love and care for Jenny, but though highly educated, they rationalize her troubles. Difficult to continue reading about someone in real life destroying themselves (this reviewer almost shut down after 25 pages because the horror of self-flagellation is so graphically real yet tough to swallow), HOMESICK should be prime reading for doctors, students, and families who are in denial or rationalize away the food disorder.Harriet Klausner