Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self

by Frances Kuffel

Book Overview

An intimate and darkly comic memoir of a woman who does a 180 with her body. When she was in her early forties, Frances Kuffel lost half her body weight. In Passing for Thin , Frances describes with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767912918
• ISBN13: 9780767912914
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Crown Archetype
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Keep moving, folks, nothing to see here.

I found the author's arrogance very hard to get past, and some parts were downright laughable like the date who told her he would never have taken her seriously at over 300 lbs, and she replies how she would have MADE him take her seriously by wowing him with her intelligence. Really? And how Eric Clapton was checking her out. Anyway, I trudged through her anger, arrogance, and potty mouth and finished the book.

A rare gift

I purchased this book shortly after it was published. I read a review of the book in the magazine "O" and could not wait to read it. I ordered it immediately and did not lay it down till I was finished...two days later (I did have to work!). If you have ever been overweight, and I have and am, there are few things that she says that you cannot relate to in some form. As I read it, I found that while the content of the story belongs to Frances and her journey, the context was mine. She told parts of my story and, I imagine, parts of others' struggles with weight/body image /anger issues. Frances did a brave thing in telling "our" story. It also took insight and a level of vulnerability that few of us are willing to share with our best friend, much less the world. When you peel away the hype from people like Dr. Phil and the mountains of "how-to" books on weight loss/fitness that line the shelves of bookstores, you find way down deep, in the dark corners of our minds and hearts, a level of pain and frailty that few of us are even aware of, much less have the skill or sensitivity to speak about in a real way. This is what Frances Koffel does in Passing for Thin. This book is not about the "how-to" of what she did. It is about the experience, the journey she walked. If you are dealing with your weight at the level of "do" then this is not the book for you. But when you get ready to look at the issues of body image, fear, anger and the tangled web of emotions that are underneath the issues of obesity, then you will be ready to hear what Frances says. This is a book about being. She writes sensitively, caringly and graciously. It is gracious that she would allow us access into the intimate world of her thoughts, to know the struggle and success of her experience of shifting her mind and her life along with her decreased body size. It is a rare gift to be able to write with such honesty and clarity. I have read it twice. I have given it to a few of my friends who, too, struggle as I do with body image issues. It is an emotional read, and a significant gift. It is not like anything else you will find on the topic. It is honest, real and relevant. Thank you, Frances. Helen Gordon Raleigh, NC

Couldn't put it down...

This unflinchingly honest memoir has left an indelible footprint on my soul. Unlike some other reviewers, I really liked Frances. I enjoy reading her blogs and I so appreciate her for taking the time to write them. So often, I become intrigued about a person I read about, and think, "I wonder what ever happened to her..." With Frances, I get to know. Frances seems like a friend, one of those people that make me muse, "I wish I lived closer to Brooklyn, I'd like to grab a cup of coffee with her and let our dogs play in the park." I wonder if the people who said unflattering things about Frances would ever have the courage to not only face their own demons, but open their closet of shame to the world and let everyone get a good gander at their personal beasties? Because of this book, I went back to a 12 step program I had written off long ago. At the time, I was not ready to do the fearless and searching moral inventory necessary. Frances' honesty inspired me and gave me the courage to try again. Who knows, after a lifetime of morbid obesity, she may have had a part in saving my life. Already 50 pounds are gone (where does it go? where??) and I am abstinent and on the road to sanity. Thank you, Frances.

Brutally honest and touching.

I'm surprised at the negative reviews I've read regarding this book. It seemed to me that these reviewers disliked the idea that the author really hated being fat and was unable to fully accept herself at that weight. To me, this seems perfectly reasonable. It's WHY she wanted to lose this weight and WHY she finally DID lose this weight. It's why ALL dieting people lose the weight. They dislike fat. Aesthetically, many people find obesity unattractive. Although one may not like this fact of life, it IS indeed a fact of life. Furthermore, for some, obesity epitomizes the idea of indulgence and a lack of caring of themselves. I found this memoir to be particularly touching. Frances is brutally honest when she recalls how she used to sneak food, and lots of it, as a child. She recalls the pain she felt being fat, how she knew she was considered and judged-- fairly or not. What I found most interesting of all is how Frances had to learn behaviors that most women take for granted. As preteens and teens, we learn to flirt, to make ourselves attractive to the opposite sex, to talk to others, to dress, to put on makeup, etc. We learn how to attract attention from others, to meet potential dates, mates, etc. All this is natural for most of us. For Frances, however, none of this was a natural progression. As an obese adolescent who never felt attractive, she never learned how to flirt because she never felt as if she was attractive enough to meet others. One of the negative reviewers stated derisively that Frances referred to herself as a girl. I didn't make that distinction when I read the book, but it's only fitting. She missed a normal girlhood-- the makeup, the hair, the sleepovers with girls where you giggle about boys and sex. All of this was foreign to Frances. And, she was never treated as a cute little girl or "an attractive woman" growing up. So, when she was all of a sudden thrust into the world of being considered attractive, of having people respond to her as if she was an attractive woman, she had to learn all of the behaviors that most of us just learned from living. I have a family member who is the author's former size. I can see, in her, many of the qualities the author shares with us about being obese. It's really not her weight alone that makes her different from other women I know, it's what that weight caused her to miss out on as a child an adolescent and how it shaped her outlook as an adult. I completely recommend this book to anyone. Whether weight has been an issue in one's life or not, this author's journey is inspiring and true.

I loved it!

All the previous reviews that point out Ms. Kuffel's self-absorbtion seem accurate. But this is how it seemed to me: she was being brutally honest. This candor is what appealed to me. It's really the selling point of OA: being able to be yourself without being judged about it. She had to adjust to being a different person after being obese her entire life and it would take a period of self-absorbtion to orient. Her story inspired me and made me admire her for baring all. We all have our "dark sides" and I, for one, am tired of always hiding my eating disorder around people who don't have eating disorders and don't understand. It's great to be frank at the meetings. That's the feeling I got from Frances K. in her book--it was brutally honest.

Identified with every word!!

In the past two years I have lost over 100 pounds, and I was absolutely glued to every page of this book. She very acurately depicts the emotions involved with seeing your body change (so that you don't recognize it anymore) and the way people look at you differently. This is an amazing and awe-inspiring book to get or keep you motivated because you can see the way to handle the emotional aspect of losing half your weight. Many of the other reviews that I've read wanted more meat about HOW she lost the weight, but I was relieved not to hear about that too much. There are tons of books out there about HOW to lose weight physically. This book deals with the emotions involved, and I loved every word of it.