I love Jennifer Weiner, so I don't know why it took me this long to read this memoir. I loved it! It's funny, sweet, and I enjoyed every page!

Jennifer Weiner does an excellent job in the memoir, opening herself up for inspection by her fans. I laughed and cried as I read the essays.

I loved Jennifer's memoir. It was inspiring, honest and heartbreaking. She opens up not only about her creative process and struggles to get published but her personal and relationship issues as well.

Jennifer Weiner has been a staple in my library ever since I read her first book, Good in Bed. As an aspiring author, I was excited to read the memoirs of a best-selling author to see what words of wisdom she had to share about writing and publishing many successful novels. She did not disappoint.

Hungry Heart is a compilation of essays covering topics from her childhood, her time at college, her siblings, her relationship with her estranged father and so much more. I was a little shocked at her openness about some pretty sensitive topics, like her mother becoming a lesbian after many years of marriage to Jennifer's father. She also gets intimate and graphic about her recent miscarriage. The author gets real honest about being overweight for most of her life, being teased by kids on a trip to Isreal, and pulling the trigger on weight-loss surgery. She also discusses her role on social media - it isn't all fluffy posts about The Bachelor.

Jennifer Weiner has appointed herself a sort of tenacious "watchdog" for gender equality in the publishing industry. And it all started with social media. She has been very outspoken about the fact that women authors don't get the same kind of "respect" that male authors, like Dan Brown, John Grisham, and others do. There are many sides to this argument, one being that a "Chick Lit" author is not deserving as more literary authors. And that is part of the reason for her ire, but her tenacity is starting to be viewed as "complaining" and some of her female colleagues and fans wish that she would just stand down. I am in the camp that while it was admirable at first, now it just seems like a giant temper tantrum and is borderline embarrassing. And this is coming from one of the biggest Chick Lit fans ever to read a book.

Bottom line - even though she feels that she is being "slighted" in the publishing industry, Jennifer Weiner is a successful author who has millions of devoted fans. She may never get the literary "kudos" that she feels that she deserves, but there are thousands of authors out there who aspire to have just a fraction of her success. Even though I disagree with her tenacious ways, I will always read - and likely enjoy - her books. Her social media on the other hand....

Details:
Hungry at Heart by Jennifer Weiner
On Twitter
Pages: 432
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: 10/11/2016
Buy it Here!

The readers at the public library will love this one.

“I wanted to write novels for the girls like me, the ones who never got to see themselves on TV or in the movies, the ones who learned to flip through the fashion spreads of Elle and Vogue because nothing in those pictures would ever fit, the ones who learned to turn away from mirrors and hurry past their reflections and unfocus their eyes when confronted with their own image. I wanted to say to those girls, I see you. You matter. I wanted to give them stories like life rafts…I wanted to tell them what I wished someone had told me…to hang on, and believe in yourself, and fight for your own happy ending.”

Many thanks go to Net Galley and Atria for the DRC, which I received a couple of months after the publication date. Having read this memoir makes me want to read more of this author’s work.. It's for sale now.

The fact that I’ve never read anything by this author makes me something of an outlier in terms of her target audience. I’m also slightly older than she is, not in need of a mentor. But none of that matters, because quality is quality, and feminist messages like this one are always good to read.

Weiner writes with an arresting combination of candor and wit, and she talks about the things we grew up being taught not to mention. Those of us that saw role models like Twiggy—a British model with a nearly anorexic appearance—and Mia Farrow, yet were ourselves unable to shake the persistent amount of what kindly adults called baby fat, never thought to argue that we were as worthwhile as these bony fashion icons. Weiner deals with the topic of body image and media head on. And while she’s there, she talks about facing down anti-Semitism in the classroom, and the dry hiss of another child on the playground suggesting that she has killed Jesus. She talks about also being the chunky, unfashionable member of her kibbutz to Israel in the unforgettable chapter titled “Fat Jennifer in the Promised Land”.

At times I confess I am annoyed by appear to be petit bourgeois concerns. You struggled to choose between Princeton and Smith? Oh you poor dear! But later when I read that she is called in to the administration’s offices and told to get her things and go because her tuition hasn’t been paid, I forgive her immediately.

Weiner takes on questions that many feminist writers pass by. I’ve never seen another writer address the fact that if a woman cannot successfully breast feed her baby or even just doesn’t want to, the child will most likely not starve. This and a host of other seldom spoken issues having to do with combining career and motherhood can help other mothers, whether working or taking time away from the workplace to raise a child, feel less isolated.

Every woman needs a funny female version of Mister Rogers to tell us that we are fine just the way we are. Every mother needs another woman that can tell her—sometimes in hilarious ways—that every rotten thing that ever happens to her child is not her fault.

Highly recommended for women seeking wisdom and snarky kick ass commentary, and to those that love them.

An interesting collection of essays by the author based on her life as a writer and mother.

I adore Jennifer Weiner. So this insight into her life was fun. I love finding memoirs that are fun to read and make you feel closer to the author or person.