In my never-ending quest for the perfect eating disorder, I picked up Portia de Rossi’s memoir, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain.

I love memoirs. Not plain old boring ones, but juicy, introspective, gossipy or tragic ones. Unbearable Lightness is pretty much all of that mixed in for a low-calorie meal and an hour on the treadmill.

I remember seeing the images of de Rossi when she was at her lowest weight, and this particular image really struck a nerve with me, looking so much like the unhealthy childhood friend I was raised with. To give you some kind of idea of how small my friend T was, my mother died of lung cancer weighing 43 lbs – we used T as the dress fitter for the outfit my mom would be buried in.

As a girl who struggled with weight all her life, I found de Rossi’s book fascinating. No matter how little she weighed, she always felt there was another inch to lose. The part that really spoke to me, however, is where she doesn’t believe she could be anorexic, because she doesn’t have the coveted willpower of anorexics. I’ve had those thoughts, myself. I’m not strong enough to be anorexic. Yet for her, it was something that snowballed until it consumed and nearly killed her, and she collapsed on a movie set here in Toronto.

I found this book so riveting – so very, very well written – that even when my coveted Decision Points came out last week, I was totally unable to put Unbearable Lightness down. It’s not a glossy Hollywood memoir chock full of glamor shots. In fact, the only images in the book are used to jar the reader (and likely the writer) and create a sense of urgency. Eat or die.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone that ever had an unhealthy relationship with food, that’s ever obsessed over a calorie, that’s ever cried watching The Biggest Loser, or who’s ever spent an extra 10 minutes on that treadmill.

Caveat: The book reads like an honest-to-goodness how-to of living and managing an eating disorder. Don’t hand this book off to your teenage daughter without really sitting down and talking with her about the harrowing effects that starvation can have on the body. Seriously, Unbearable Lightness is like an instruction manual, and shouldn’t be given to the impressionable without giving them some kind of emotional support during and after the reading. It would be all too easy to adapt the Portia de Rossi diet to the life of a 15 or 16 year old girl, what with all the tips and tricks on how to hide the lifestyle.

That said, I consider this one of the all-time best books I have read, and plan to read it again. Order yours through Amazon.com and save 50% off the cover price. Canadian residents use this Amazon link.

On Order from Amazon: Allah is Dead