This is Big

Reviews / Votes

A life-changing book * Viv Groskop * Frank, funny and feminist, she [Meltzer] describes her struggles with charm and honesty, questioning how a (mostly) happy person can be made so miserable by calories, portion sizes and scales -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express * This is the anti-diet book I have been waiting for. I loved its honesty, charm and celebration of an unlikely but compelling feminist heroine. I think many women -- me included -- really struggle to find a voice in a culture where wellness and body positivity both noisily vie for our attention. For the first time I feel seen and heard -- Daisy Buchanan Sharp... frank and incisive -- Charlotte Lytton * The Telegraph * For anyone who has ever felt defeated by food, betrayed by their own body, embarrassed for not only lacking the willpower to change their habits but also embarrassed by the desire to change their own body, Marisa Meltzer sees you, has written this book for you because she is you. While simultaneously delving into the history of the woman who started Weight Watchers and bravely and honestly examining her own complicated relationship with food and weight, Marisa has written a book that perfectly captures our country's obsession with THIN and the struggle with obesity at this moment in history -- Busy Philipps, author of This Will Only Hurt A Little This is Big is a brave, bold, funny, honest, riveting book that made me have every kind of feeling in the world -- Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown Up Fascinating... Meltzer's whistle-stop history of America's body image is both effortlessly informative and efficiently selective -- Eleanor Halls * Daily Telegraph * Meltzer has created a singular companionate text for those who know the agony of frustration surrounding weight as an issue, both personal and political. People - women, especially - who ping-pong around the weight spectrum will feel less alone when they read it... Nidetch may be long gone, but Meltzer carries on her legacy of putting a public face on the challenge of weight management. Acerbic, culturally astute and genuine, she makes exquisite company in the struggle, and that is no small thing. -- Lily Burana * New York Times * At once a biography and a memoir, this heartfelt, incisive book layers the story of Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch with the author's own lifelong journey through various fad diets. What emerges is a surprising portrait of a remarkable but little-known life in business, as well as a thoughtful critique of America's obsession with thinness. Meltzer, who has herself subscribed to Weight Watchers, brings a personal angle to this fascinating, far-reaching story of a phenomenon that has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of women * Esquire * This book is an incredible hybrid: both a detailed study of an extraordinary American life, and a candid and revealing memoir. Meltzer is the biographer Jean Nidetch deserves, crafting a portrait of the woman and the world in which she lived. She's also a bracing memoirist, a warm and honest voice unafraid to offer readers the stuff of her own life to help us better understand the culture we now share. It's a remarkable feat -- Rumaan Alam, author of That Kind of Mother