UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS: A STORY OF LOSS AND GAIN ---Portia de Rossi

I was prepared not to like this book. I went into it with a bias and not trusting the author. In fact, I was actually shocked to find that she wrote it herself, as so many famous people hire somebody to ghost their "autobiographies" for them. So, I will eat my words. Had there been a calorie counter which listed "words" and their nutritional content, Portia de Rossi would have known how long she would have had to work out to burn those offending words too.
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Dare I say it....I liked the book and I like her? I found her genuine and intelligent. Prior to her opting to move to Hollywood and walk the stage boards, she had been a regular girl with a high I.Q. and a normal name. She wanted to be a lawyer and was well on her way to doing so. She was no dumb blond. Portia also harboured what she felt was a shameful secret; she was gay. This was not the Hollywood lite version where she kissed a girl to garner publicity. She always knew it. In this book she writes not only of her eating disorder but also about coming to terms with this. She feared that it would ruin her chance at success. In keeping her food secrets safe and her sexual secrets from others, she could not connect with people. It was a lonely life.
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Portia was a young model and tells of how damaging the comments were to her. Adults would discuss her body as though it were an inanimate object that needed fixing. Her means of rebelling against this was to binge and then starve or purge.
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I recall well the tabloid stories about her. In her account she details how she would jog withour mercy, even in heels. She would find herself in an absolute panic if she ate a minuscule amount of excess calories. Her weight would fluctuate vastly and while frustrating, surely to the wardrobe department, can be very dangerous to the heart. She is a tall woman and she dropped to below ninety pounds. I hate to divulge how she helped herself, as I will let the reader find out when they buy the book. It's well worth the purchase. She is not the disingenuous starlet at all; the ones who wax on about being "fat" and hating their looks constantly yet skate by on their looks alone (the models who claim to be actresses come to mind). Portia is very much sincere in her love for Ellen, in her battle against eating disorders and her ability to tell a story.