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

4.0

This is an incredibly powerful book, shocking and brutally honest, with a highly important message that I think many women, whether in their teens or older, could really benefit from learning. The book is graphic, going right into the little details of Portia's eating disorders, and I think that the book really benefits from this. As I was reading, learning what Portia was doing and yet reading in her own words (as if she were back at that point in her life) that she wasn't anorexic or bulimic, that she was just a successful dieter who had figured out the secret of being thin when all the professionals were wrong, I found that that really hit home. The passage just before the epilogue where you finally see pictures of what Portia looked like at her lowest weight, after reading so much about Portia defending herself against all those who said she was too thin, was incredibly powerful. After reading about her weight loss, seeing it was something completely different. I thought the epilogue was carefully done, too. The message she writes there, after coming through it, is so important. Really, hats off to Portia for writing this book and going back to the darkest moments in her life in order to do it. It couldn't have been easy.
I dropped the last star though because I really would have wanted more detail about her recovery. It is mentioned in the epilogue, but to read that in the level of detail in which the rest of the book was written would have made this book even better. She could have really showed us what recovery is like, rather than simply telling us in a few paragraphs. From the other reviews here, it seems I'm not the only one who would have liked to see this.