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I'll Have What She's Having: My Adventures In Celebrity Dieting (2000)

by Rebecca Harrington(Favorite Author)

3.24 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1101872438 (ISBN13: 9781101872437)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

review 1: I had read Rebecca Harrington's diet posts online and I was excited to see an entire book from her on the subject. Viewing celebrity dieting and our cultural obsession with women's bodies, how fit they are, what they eat and how they exercise to look a certain way, and the lengths that they will go to in order to fulfill some arbitrary idea of perfection that we, ourselves, created... and to do it all with a non-preachy humor, makes for a spectacular premise for a collection. I was definitely disappointed, though, that the book just seemingly threw together the columns that she already wrote, without adding much of anything else. I hadn't read all of her columns before picking up this book (so I was definitely interested throughout the entire book) but I HAD read some, inc... moreluding "I Tried Gwyneth Paltrow's Diet" and even though I read it months ago, I could immediately recall enough to tell that it was copied verbatim here. The individual chapters for each diet were far too short -- what might work for an online article did not feel nearly in depth enough for a book. Harrington is funny and clearly committed to these diet "experiments" but we do not get nearly enough of her actual thoughts and experiences on these crazy diets. Plus, she is just not on some of them long enough. Two days on one, four days on another? It would have been far better if she committed to a set amount of time for each diet, like 7 days. It would haven given her more to write about, at least. Also, I would have loved for her to talk more about why she "loves diets" so much, what really prompted her to check out all of these diets (did she want to expose just how insane eating this way is, or was she actually just looking to lose weight and used it as a way to get a column and book deal?) Her closing remarks saw a shadow of this discussion coming through, but there needed to be much more. Is this a diet advocacy book, or one that wants to expose the unhealthiness of such regimes? The fact that I don't know means this book failed in one huge way.It was very entertaining to read and I got through it in less than an hour. But I think there were some huge opportunities for greatness that were missed out here and it's a shame. *I received a galley from NetGalley*
review 2: This book is a collection of Harrington's celebrity diet articles for New York Magazine. Although it isn't new material, I still really enjoyed this book. Harrington is funny and this was a quick read. This doesn't go into much detail about the actual diets she is on or include recipes, it's more about Harrington's feelings while on the diets. It's lighthearted and a fun look at celebrity culture. Harrington only tries each diet for 10 days (sometimes less) so this isn't meant to be a how-to book on celebrity dieting. Overall, it's a really funny book and I love how ridiculous Harrington thinks the diets are (because they are- cabbage soup? celery loaf? 10 diet cokes a day?).I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my review. less

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