"Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain" by Portia de Rossi

308 pages

In this memoir, Portia de Rossi (actress from "Ally McBeal" and "Arrested Development," and wife of Ellen DeGeneres) chronicles her nearly lifelong struggle with anorexia and bulimia. From the time she was a child, she fluctuated between binging, purging, and starving herself. When she began to pursue a modeling/acting career, the pressure she felt to stay thin and to hide the fact that she was a lesbian pushed her further and further into her eating disorder. "Unbearable Lightness" tells the story of how she hit rock-bottom, slowly learned to accept her body and her sexuality, and eventually fully recovered.

I often have trouble relating to celebrities, even ones with big problems, because they live in such a different world than most of us. I don't feel like that about Portia, though. She's incredibly honest in the book and that made her seem like an ordinary person, stumbling through life like the rest of us. Her feelings come across as very real and very raw. Although her struggle was exasperated by her Hollywood career, it's obvious that her self-loathing and troubled relationship with food began long before she started acting and go deeper than superficial concern about her appearance. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to know what's going on in the mind of someone with anorexia. I can't decide if this story is good or bad for those who have eating disorders, though. It might be bad for some people who are still deeply wrapped up in anorexia or bulimia because there are lots of references to Portia's actual weight and specific disordered behaviors that she had, and that's almost always bad for people with anorexia to hear. On the other hand, I think this story would be a great inspiration to people who are in the process of recovering from an eating disorder.