Washington Square Press
Homesick : A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope
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Homesick
Author(s): Jenny Lauren
With captivating blue eyes and dark hair, Jenny Lauren looked as though she'd stepped out of one of the ads for which her uncle, Ralph Lauren, is famous. It was not long, however, before she found herself in a world where it was easy to see herself as less than perfect. She was ten years old when she first starved herself. After many years of bingeing, purging, and compulsively exercising, her body fell apart. Her colon herniated and she was forced to undergo surgery. At twenty-four, living in chronic pain, she wrote Homesick as a cautionary tale that she hoped would touch many.
This unflinching account details her struggle with anorexia and bulimia, yet is also a much larger story that focuses on universal issues: the intricacies of family ties, the pressures of society, the search for selfhood, and ultimately the power of hope. With flashes of wit and a knowing beyond its young writer's years, Homesick is a riveting and emotionally complex story of pain and hard-won recovery that no reader will forget.
Review(s):
"Jenny Lauren's memoir should be required reading for every teenage girl in America. Like the author, this book is honest, hilarious, brave, tenacious, and shameless, in all the right ways."
-- Pam Houston, author of Sight Hound
"[A] story about learning to accept one's body as one's home."
-- Teen Vogue
"Lauren is intelligent, creative, and a skilled writer, and she evokes empathy."
-- Publishers Weekly
"[O]ne of the most harrowing personal accounts of living with an eating disorder ever published."
-- The Daily Telegraph (London)
"Homesick should be required reading for all pre- and adolescent girls...and any parent who wants to know what's really going on with their daughters."
- Tama Janowitz, author of Peyton Amberg and Slaves of New York
"As urgent and intimate as a best friend's phone call, Homesick chronicles Jenny Lauren's descent into an Alice in Wonderland medical nightmare. But Homesick is not about sickness. It's about persistence, strength, and the awesome power of one woman's will to fight for herself and get better."
- Jillian Medoff, author of Hunger Point and Good Girls Gone Bad
"Almost every girl wakes up one morning wondering whether she's too fat -- but if you're Jenny Lauren, that's a particularly loaded question. The niece of fashion icon, Ralph Lauren, Homesick is a home run for the issue of eating disorders in America. Jenny Lauren courageously chronicles her own battle with bulimia in this raw account, which finally lead me to understand the intricacies of this illness. Her story will certainly help others like herself and their families and actually help save lives."
- Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
"Never have I read a more honest account of a life in turmoil and the powerful desire to reshape it. In Homesick Jenny Lauren confronts her 'fashion world' family, her doctors, therapists, and -- most of all -- herself, and her ruling passion to starve. This memoir is bare-bones beautiful."
- Barbara Robinette Moss, author of Change Me into Zeus's Daughter
ISBN: 9780743456999
Author(s): Jenny Lauren
With captivating blue eyes and dark hair, Jenny Lauren looked as though she'd stepped out of one of the ads for which her uncle, Ralph Lauren, is famous. It was not long, however, before she found herself in a world where it was easy to see herself as less than perfect. She was ten years old when she first starved herself. After many years of bingeing, purging, and compulsively exercising, her body fell apart. Her colon herniated and she was forced to undergo surgery. At twenty-four, living in chronic pain, she wrote Homesick as a cautionary tale that she hoped would touch many.
This unflinching account details her struggle with anorexia and bulimia, yet is also a much larger story that focuses on universal issues: the intricacies of family ties, the pressures of society, the search for selfhood, and ultimately the power of hope. With flashes of wit and a knowing beyond its young writer's years, Homesick is a riveting and emotionally complex story of pain and hard-won recovery that no reader will forget.
Review(s):
"Jenny Lauren's memoir should be required reading for every teenage girl in America. Like the author, this book is honest, hilarious, brave, tenacious, and shameless, in all the right ways."
-- Pam Houston, author of Sight Hound
"[A] story about learning to accept one's body as one's home."
-- Teen Vogue
"Lauren is intelligent, creative, and a skilled writer, and she evokes empathy."
-- Publishers Weekly
"[O]ne of the most harrowing personal accounts of living with an eating disorder ever published."
-- The Daily Telegraph (London)
"Homesick should be required reading for all pre- and adolescent girls...and any parent who wants to know what's really going on with their daughters."
- Tama Janowitz, author of Peyton Amberg and Slaves of New York
"As urgent and intimate as a best friend's phone call, Homesick chronicles Jenny Lauren's descent into an Alice in Wonderland medical nightmare. But Homesick is not about sickness. It's about persistence, strength, and the awesome power of one woman's will to fight for herself and get better."
- Jillian Medoff, author of Hunger Point and Good Girls Gone Bad
"Almost every girl wakes up one morning wondering whether she's too fat -- but if you're Jenny Lauren, that's a particularly loaded question. The niece of fashion icon, Ralph Lauren, Homesick is a home run for the issue of eating disorders in America. Jenny Lauren courageously chronicles her own battle with bulimia in this raw account, which finally lead me to understand the intricacies of this illness. Her story will certainly help others like herself and their families and actually help save lives."
- Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
"Never have I read a more honest account of a life in turmoil and the powerful desire to reshape it. In Homesick Jenny Lauren confronts her 'fashion world' family, her doctors, therapists, and -- most of all -- herself, and her ruling passion to starve. This memoir is bare-bones beautiful."
- Barbara Robinette Moss, author of Change Me into Zeus's Daughter
ISBN: 9780743456999