3.3 out of 4 stars.

This is a book about a young girl growing up with weight issues and her mission to overcome them. She is able to do so with food-portioning, exercising, and healthy cooking tricks. Over the years, after she is able to go from a weight of 300 pounds to a shocking 135 pounds, Andi writes this memoir at age 28 to show whether she was obese or fit, she remains the same in her heart and her head.

Andi turns out have such a mental obsession with food she is diagnosed with a disorder. There are many reasons one can grow up overweight. In Mitchell’s case it was because she used food as her friend and safety blanket. She went into great detail of how she would eat bowl after bowl of cereal when left alone in the middle of the day or munch on a tub of ice cream while she stayed up at night waiting for her mom to get home. Her father passed from a stroke due to his alcoholism and lack of caring for his own heath (he was overweight as well). Andi’s mother had to work two jobs just to keep the family afloat and this left Andi all by herself. A dream and a curse for someone who cannot be restrained from eating. She was able to eat all the food in the cabinets without anyone knowing and thus not having any judgement. It was as if she blinked and was gaining pounds in the bulk, year after year. The remainder of the book is Andi reaching rock bottom and deciding she need to change course.

Now time for the review. Please note that with all my opinions they are just that, my own thoughts. I get especially sensitive when I am critiquing a memoir and let alone one that deals with disorders and diseases. Of course, nothing is of judgement just of my point of view and I am not expert. However, I do value my opinion because I, myself struggle with my weight because I am only 5 feet tall and curvy. Big butt and boobs with nowhere to go can just make you feel overwhelmingly round. I picked this story up because I thought I would be able to identify with Mitchell’s memoir and read through the rocky pitfalls to leave saying if she can have such emotional distress and power through than so could I. Surprisingly, I couldn’t quite get that message delivered to my brain when reading this.

This book is much too short. Clearly by Andi’s successful lifestyle change one can see how much of a go-getter she is. Despite the trauma of being obese, Mitchell seems to be able to explain to the reader how many good times she had throughout her life. These examples include, winning prom queen, traveling to Italy, finding a boyfriend who loves her despite her emotional breakdowns, and a mother that does not teeter despite her own hardships. Honestly, I wish some of these things could happen to me. I wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend follow me wherever I decide to move and a mother willing to pay $15,000 for reconstructive surgery to get rid of my excessive fat. For goodness sakes, she even gets to meet Leonardo DiCaprio, her ultimate crush!  Now, don’t get me wrong I am so happy for her but since the book is so short I feel like these “wins” take up a majority of it. Since we barely scratch the surface in this book it leaves the reader feeling like they heard about only the good.

Why would we want to hear about the bad, you ask? Because people find strength in thinking they are not alone. All the amazing things that Mitchell gets to do is not average and it is a charmed path. Yes, she is overweight but that doesn’t tie into other factors that it does for others. For example, when I am not doing well on the scale it affects my skin, my breathing, my hair, my stomach pains etc. It is not an isolated issue that I am a little chunky that year on the surface.

I wanted to hear about those conversations with the doctors of how Andi was putting her life in jeopardy with high cholesterol or a risk of diabetes at a young age. How her own father had a stroke and that his genetics are a part of her.  I wanted Andi’s mother to speak up and say that she is worried about her emotional state and why she chooses to eat twelve donuts by herself in the kitchen at all hours of the night. However, I didn’t hear any of that. I heard that Andi got asked to prom by the hottest guy in school and that those superficial bandaids make being overweight not so bad.

This book had the potential to be a great story because Andi really does come out on top. I just wish that we were able to dig deeper into WHY one should choose to lose the weight. Of course, your brain and soul are the same in whatever body your have but if you want to stay on this earth a long time you can’t just love it because it doesn’t look bad you have to treat it well in order to keep using it – no matter how big or small.

Please leave a comment below if you read this and have any feedback. I would love to hear your side of what you took from it.