“The full title here is Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time by Valerie Bertinelli. Yes, that's right. I read an autobiography by Valerie Bertinelli, she of One Day at a Time fame, countless made-for-TV movies, and a marriage to a certain Van Halen member. Let's chalk it up to expanding my horizons and stepping outside my usual reading comfort zone.
And actually, it's not a particularly BAD book. Bertinelli tells her life's story (so far), following what I can only assume is the typical celebrity autobiography template: she talks about her parents, her roots, her childhood, her coming of age, the train wreck her life becomes, and how she stepped up to pull things back together and be happy (and thin). All through the narrative is the theme of her obsession with her weight, and she sprinkles numbers throughout that serve as both measures of her weight and sign posts to various crises in her life. Personally, I'm surprised that she could remember with such precision how much she weighed 20 or 30 years ago, but apparently she was obsessed with that kind of thing.
The most interesting parts of the book were the early chapters where she talked about her childhood and how she broke into acting through a stumbling start with a few commercials and eventually landing her role as Barbara Cooper on One Day at a Time. The middle part of the book where she describes juggling a TV acting career with a doomed rock star marriage was actually pretty boring, and only served to make me realize that I'd actually rather be reading a biography about Van Halen. But Bertinnelli really only lived on the periphery of that story, so we got very little gossip or insight there. The last 20 pages are so are dedicated to her joining the Cult of Jenny and becoming a spokesperson for the Jenny Craig weight loss system.
The book isn't helped by the fact that Bertinelli isn't a particularly great writer, though I've certainly read worse. The theme of how her weight related to her self-esteem provided a common thread to all parts of the story, but personally I got pretty sick of hearing numbers tossed around and all the constant "BLECK! Jalapeno cheddar poppers! I WAS SO FAT! Jordan almonds! AAACK!" At times it felt less like a real story and more like the extended script for that Cathy comic strip I used to always think was not funny as a kid. She also breaks off into non-sequeter screeds against poparatzi and George Bush that seemed to come out of nowhere.
So, on balance the book wasn't bad, but it's the kind of itch that could probably be scratched by watching any random episode of E True Hollywood Story or possibly VH1 Behind the Music. If you're there for some kind of personal insights or triumph, you're going see them coming far before Bertinelli gets them, and get tired of them well before she's through with you. But if you're particularly interested in her as a person, go for it. She seems like a pretty nice person and I was left feeling glad that things seem to have worked out for her.”
jmadigan wrote this review Friday, March 13 2009.
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