Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi

"A Story of Loss and Gain".  De Rossi is an Australian actress who has appeared on TV shows Ally McBeal and Arrested Development, and various movies.  She began modeling when she was 12 years old.  After making a movie in Australia, she came to the U.S. to break into movies & tv here.  She began struggling with her weight and feelings of insecurity as a teenager. 

In the book, written after her marriage to Ellen Degeneres, de Rossi recounts her constant struggle to lose weight and become "thin".  She equates thinness with beauty and self-worth.  Gaining weight, or even failure to lose weight is a personal failure.  She believes that there should be a space between her thighs when lying on her side.  She eventually begins to measure this gap.  After losing down to 89 pounds, she passes out at a movie shoot, and is contractually required to seek medical help. 

De Rossi's story is hard to put down.  Everything she is doing makes sense in her mind - and she takes you right along with her.  Not until the end do you see how thin she was.