Wake Up, I'm Fat! - by Camryn Manheim (Paperback)

About the Book

This hilarious bestseller, written by the Emmy Award-winning star of ABC's "The Practice", offers Manheim's no-holds-barred take on love, politics, blind dates, bikinis, and her own weight-loss attempts, as she confronts head-on the attitudes that shape the many faces of American beauty. 24 photos.

Book Synopsis

In this New York Times-bestselling inspirational memoir, Camryn Manheim, Emmy Award-winning costar of The Practice, chronicles her journey from a self-hating, "overweight" teenager, who desperately wanted to fit in, to a self-loving, fat activist who is proud to be a misfit. Wake Up, I'm Fat! shares her intelligent, candid, poignant, and often hilarious stories of being fat in a society obsessed with being thin.

Camryn takes us from her days as a motorcycle-riding hippie in Santa Cruz to her enrollment at New York University's prestigious school of drama--where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner broke the unspoken theater rules of size by casting her in the role of the ingenue--and finally to Hollywood, where she dispelled the fallacy that large women can't be portrayed as sensual, sophisticated, and confident.

Camryn's endearing honesty, sass, and razor-sharp wit will appeal to any reader who has ever felt like an outcast or yearned to make peace with their body.

Review Quotes

"A liberated, humorous, triumphant story...the writing is as fresh and as friendly as the Emmy winner's speech. Anyone could benefit from her lessons in living large."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Manheim's wit runs from impish to slashing; this may be the funniest book about fat acceptance ever written."
--Dallas Morning News

"Wake Up, I'm Fat! is the heartfelt and ballsy story of how [Manheim] learned to be comfortable in her own skin...Inspiring without being soap Oprah-ish, Manheim is a natural writer; she has fine powers of description (her chapter on Emmy night is at once dishy and spellbinding)...her dignity and self-reliance are downright refreshing."
--Salon

"A funny, wickedly candid book."
--Good Housekeeping

"An open and unabashed look at being fat that's crammed with funny, poignant, and painful insights."
--Parade

About the Author

Camryn Manheim is an actor, activist, writer, and playwright who rides a Honda CB650, and whose current role as the smart, passionate, combative attorney Ellenor Frutt on ABC's The Practice earned her an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress in a drama. Her film credits include Happiness, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, The Road to Wellville, Eraser, Mercury Rising and Wide Awake. She holds a master's degree in acting from NYU and is proud to have performed in most of New York's off-Broadway theaters, winning an Obie Award and an Encore Award for her performance in Craig Lucas's Missing Persons. In 1994 she brought her acclaimed one-woman show, Wake Up, I'm Fat!, to the Joseph Papp Public Theater. She divides her time between New York and Los Angeles, but is registered to vote in New York.