Stick Figure - by Lori Gottlieb (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published in hardcover in 2000.

Book Synopsis

Lori Gottlieb--psychotherapist, national advice columnist, and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk To Someone--shares her "gripping" (The Boston Globe) chronicle of adolescent anorexia that "stands out as a fresh, edgy take...on that perilous time in a girl's life when she's no longer a child but not quite an adult (Entertainment Weekly). For a girl growing up in Beverly Hills in 1978, the motto "You can never be too rich or too thin" is writ large. Precocious Lori learns her lessons well, so when she's told that "real women don't eat dessert" and "no one could ever like a girl who has thunder thighs," she decides to become a paragon of dieting. Soon Lori has become the "stick figure" she's longed to resemble. But then what? Stick Figure takes the reader on a gripping journey, as Lori struggles to reclaim both her body and her spirit. By turns painful and wry, Lori's efforts to reconcile the conflicting messages society sends women ring as true today as when she first recorded these impressions. "One diet book says that if you drink three full glasses of water one hour before every meal to fill yourself up, you'll lose a pound a day. Another book says that once you start losing weight, everyone will ask, 'How did you do it?' but you shouldn't tell them because it's 'your little secret.' Then right above that part it says, 'New York Times bestseller.' Some secret." Based on the author's childhood journals, Stick Figure is "a smart, funny, compassionate" (Entertainment Weekly) tale that delivers an engrossing glimpse into the mind of a girl in transition to adulthood and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of living up to society's expectations.

Review Quotes

Peggy Orenstein author of School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap By turns earnest and funny, hopeful and tragic, eleven-year-old Lori is a latter-day Alice: She takes us through the distorted looking glass that's held up to young girls and into the harrowing land of eating disorders. There is no other word for it: You will devour this book -- and, hopefully, keep right on eating.

About the Author

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over three million copies and has been translated into over thirty languages. In addition to her clinical practice, she writes The New York Times "Ask the Therapist" advice column and is cohost of the popular Dear Therapists podcast and the advice podcast Since You Asked. A contributing writer for The Atlantic, she also wrote The Atlantic's "Dear Therapist" advice column for six years. She is a sought-after expert appearing on Oprah, the Today show, The Daily Show, Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, CNN, and NPR's Fresh Air, and her TED Talk, which has over 7 million views and was one of the Top 10 Most Watched of the Year. She is the creator of the Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Workbook: A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life and the Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Journal: 52 Weekly Sessions to Transform Your Life.