Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing

by Jennifer Weiner

She’s also a mom, a daughter, and a sister; a former rower and current cyclist; a best friend and a reality TV junkie. In her first foray into nonfiction, she takes the raw stuff of her personal life and spins into a collection of essays on modern womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Tina Fey, Fran Lebowitz, and Nora Ephron.

Jennifer grew up as an outsider in her picturesque Connecticut hometown (“a Lane Bryant outtake in an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot”) and at her Ivy League college, but finally found her people in newsrooms in central Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, and her voice as a novelist, activist, and New York Times columnist.

No subject is off-limits in this intimate and honest essay collection: sex, weight, envy, money, her mom’s newfound lesbianism, and her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to modern childbirth to hearing her six-year-old daughter’s use of the f-word—fat­­—for the first time, Jennifer Weiner goes there, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.

By turns hilarious and deeply touching, this collection shows that the woman behind treasured novels like Good in Bed and Best Friends Forever is every bit as winning, smart, and honest in real life as she is in her fiction.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Essays, Biography, Humor, Biography Memoir

432 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2016

About the author

Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eighteen books, including Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, and, most recently, That Summer. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives with her family in Philadelphia. Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.

Reviews

[JanB · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
This was a book recommendation from Sarah @ Sarah’s bookshelves. I am not a regular reader of the author’s books but now that I have read this one I’d be more willing to pick up one of her other books. She’s smart, funny, and relatable.

She has struggles like the rest of us and stems from a dysfunctional family. She holds nothing back in this book of essays/memoir. Some of it is heart-wrenching as she details her earlier life when she struggles with her weight and fitting in with her peers. Her dysfunctional family, had it not been true, reads like fiction.

She definitely knows how to tell an entertaining story but for a memoir she is surprisingly silent about big chunks of her life: the details surrounding the break-up of her first marriage and the circumstances around her second marriage. Still, it’s her story to tell and if she chooses to not give her readers the details, then it’s her choice to make. It just seemed off to me when she is so open and frank with other parts of her personal life.

As in most books that follow this format not every chapter worked for me. I didn’t care for the sections that detailed her tweets, some of which were very mean-spirited. For a mother that made a point of having a heart-to-heart with her daughter's use of the “f word” (fat), she can sometimes be surprisingly insensitive toward others. Maybe we all find it easy to see the splinter in another’s eye while being blind to the log in our own.

She writes about marriage, parenting, motherhood, miscarriage, weight, her troubled relationship with her father and his abandonment of the family, her insecurities and self-doubt, and the ups and downs of her career. Her writing style is funny and self-deprecating.

The author narrates the audiobook and it provided me with hours of entertainment on a long drive. It felt like sitting down over a cup of coffee with a good friend and dishing about life.

[Adi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer Weiner is the only novelist I follow on Twitter. Out of the many hundreds of books I've loved, very few authors have given me the sense of familiarity she did with "Good In Bed", which tempted me to pull back the curtain and risk revealing her to be someone I couldn't stand. After a few years of tweets, I'm delighted to discover I like her even more, so I was thrilled to hear (on Twitter, obv!) that not only had she written a memoir, but that I would be receiving an advance copy.

"Hungry Heart" had some moments of snort-worthy humor and several passages where I wanted to call up my BFF (long after she would certainly be asleep, sadly) and yell YES. THIS. EXACTLY. But the parts that meant most to me were the segments where I felt as if JW had passed me a note reading "me too" with a gentle squeeze of the shoulder. I teared up reading about her traumatic birth, and as I recounted parts to my husband I found myself breaking down into sobs at the rawness I still feel about my own. I read with absolute understanding her devastation at breaking up with someone she knew wasn't right for her, and recognized the feeling of being so desperate for love in a world that tells you you're unlovable that you will cling to a broken relationship. I nodded along at the anger evident in her nasty moniker for the ex's new love, and saw my own regrettable cruelty mirrored in her words.

Of course, as the saying goes, "Your fave is problematic!" Or, in more classic parlance, "No one is perfect." The way she writes about mental illness, the way "crazy" is only linked to the cruelty of her father, feels hurtful, and she also falls into the trap of justifying fatness (which requires so justification) with health and athleticism. But all in all, her flaws are evidence of her humanity, and it's her humanity, her imperfection, that makes me like her to begin with, and makes this memoir so welcome.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun collection of essays from author Jennifer Weiner. She talks about her awkward childhood, her strained relationship with her father, her quirky mother, her struggles with weight and overeating, how she got her start in journalism and later, how she started writing novels. There's also an interesting essay on the experience of getting one of her books made into a movie ("In Her Shoes" which featured Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacLaine), but my favorite pieces discussed her run-ins with sexism in the publishing industry, and specifically, her Twitter-spat involving novelist Jonathan Franzen.

I admit that before I read Hungry Heart I hadn't read any of Weiner's novels. What I knew of her was tied to news articles I had seen about the Franzen fracas and her complaints about how women's fiction is both promoted and reviewed in the media.* Weiner's essay references how little coverage women's novels get compared to men's novels (studies on this have proved her point) and that when a book proposal is submitted to a publishing house, if it has a female author's name on it, it's less likely to get attention than if a male author submitted the same proposal (also backed up by research).

*Sidenote: I still love one of the quotes that came out of the fracas several years ago, which is (to paraphrase) that when women write novels about family, it's considered chick lit, but when men write novels about family, they're really writing about AMERICA.

To sum up, I enjoyed this collection of essays, which had both serious and silly pieces. I could have skipped the one rehashing Weiner's love affair with the "Bachelor" TV shows, but I thought the pieces about her family and her weight issues were strong. I think fans of Weiner's novels will like this book.

Favorite Quotes
"I'm not a great writer. But maybe I'm a really good storyteller." -- Judy Blume

"I, too, am a storyteller ... I care about language and structure and pace, but I care about plot and characters more. I know I'm not the kind of writer who wins prizes and a place on the ninth-grade summer reading list, the kind of writer who gets called 'great' ... But 'great writer' was never my ambition, and I suspect was never within the realm of possibility. I believe that, through education and inclination, through temperament and history, all authors grow up to be a particular kind of writer, to tell a specific type of story. We could no more change the kind of work we do — the voice in which we write, the characters that call to us — than we could our own blood type."

"I believe that if the New York Times is going to review mysteries and thrillers and science fiction, it should also review romance — which remains by far the bestselling genre of all literature — and everything that comes under the catch-all umbrella of 'commercial women's fiction.' Maybe books like mine won't win the National Book Award, but that doesn't mean they don't matter at all. Nor does it mean that the women who read them deserve to be ignored or erased. Women's stories matter, the stories we write, the stories we read... They tell us who we are, they give us places to explore our problems, to try on identities and imagine happy endings. They entertain us, they divert us, they comfort us when we're lonely or alone. Women's stories matter. And women matter, too."

[lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hadn't realized how prolific Jennifer Weiner has become over the last fifteen years. To me she's always been, "That author who wrote two books I really, really liked, and a bunch that I didn't care too much about, so I stopped reading her stuff, but I feel pretty confident recommending her books to certain readers." Apparently she not only live tweets about The Bachelor, she writes columns for The New York Times, and pieces for all kinds of magazines, and I had no idea about any of it!

She also has put out a new collection of. . . nonfiction essays I suppose I would call them. I can't quite call this book a memoir, or an autobiography, since it's pretty unfocused. Ms. Weiner jumps back and forth in time within each chapter (or essay, I suppose) but the way the chapters are laid are fairly linear to her life. She puts her family history and childhood memories in the first part of the book, followed by her high school experiences, and her college years, etc. However, she seems to jog back a couple of times to talk about her feelings and opinions on some bigger issues happening in greater society, making this a hybrid of Laurie Notaro's humorous essays on life, and Tina Fey's quasi-memoir Bossypants. If you liked Bossypants, or The Potty Mouth at the Table you will probably like this book, even though it feels much more self-absorbed than either of those books.

I got an ARC of this book earlier this month from a giveaway listed by the publisher on Shelf Awareness. Since I liked Jennifer Weiner's books once upon a time, and since In Her Shoes is one of my favorite film adaptations of a book, I was excited to get back into Weiner's world. And while the overall feeling of the book went up and down for me, by the end I knew I didn't much like this book, and unless you are a diehard fan of Jennifer Weiner, you will probably not like this book either. Much of the book is a loud shriek of constant complaint. I feel bad saying that, especially since there were times when Weiner's complaints were legitimate, and when they were, the writing was spectacular. Her feelings of devastation and anger about her complicated relationship with her deadbeat father brought tears to my eyes, and her frustration with herself as a new mother was also well done. She makes great points about the hypocritical sexism of male book reviewers, and about society's view of larger women. However, she conveniently glides over some of the arguments people could give her against these very points, namely that instead of making any decent attempt at losing her baby weight she goes right for gastric bypass surgery. Or that most romance books are so badly written that there is no way a paper would waste space on reviewing them. You can't compare an anonymous writer of Harlequin drivel to Stephen King, who is a very good writer, despite sticking to mostly horror stories. She also spends a good portion of the book whining about how she didn't fit in at Princeton because she wasn't a slim, pretty girl. Somewhere in the midst of this self-pity she makes an off-hand, snarky comment about how one of her roommates decided to make friends with the people she meets at her seminar for students of color, instead of her white suitemates. Is there no part of Jennifer Weiner that understands this? Should we all shed tears for her because she's too smart to belong, or should we feel sympathetic to her roommate who had to deal with Weiner's neediness, and sarcasm?

Toward the end of the book, Weiner includes a chapter on the tweets she's sent out to the world. At first I thought she was talking about tweets that made a difference in some way, like her tweets that cost misogynist columnist Andrew Goldman his job, but it turns out she was talking about completely random tweets that she seemed to think were oh-so-clever (including way too many about The Bachelor). The nastiest of these collection of tweets was, "If I'm Joan Didion's dog, I'm not liking my chances." She then defends herself by saying that Joan Didion made a lot of money off her pain, writing her books about the death of her husband and daughter, and wouldn't it be hilarious if she thought about offing her dog to increase her time on the bestseller list? I would expect that argument from anyone except a writer. How else would a writer process the pain and horror of such losses? How would Jennifer Weiner expect to process such a terrible thing should she have to live through it? Can she not use her famous imagination to begin to comprehend what Joan Didion must have gone through following such sadness? Also, Didion was a well known, well respected writer long before A Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights came out, meaning she is not defined by these books (except, I guess, in Weiner's mind). I wonder if anyone has pointed out to Princeton graduate Jennifer Weiner that her former professor, Joyce Carol Oates, wrote a similar memoir about the pain of losing her husband called A Widow's Story: A Memoir. Again, how else do writer's process such a terrible, and unfair thing?

To be honest, my anger over that tasteless tweet knocked a star off this review for me, and made me pretty sure that I won't be following Weiner on Twitter anytime soon. I can see this being a popular book, and it wasn't the worst thing I've read this year, but it did remind me of why I got tired of reading Weiner's novels.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars for Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing by Jennifer Weiner read by the author.

I think I like Jennifer Weiner’s fictional writing better. I prefer chapters that are more linear instead of themed essays that jump around in time.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of Jennifer Weiners novels and loved them all. This is the first non fiction book of hers that I've read and I loved it! It's wonderful, honest and candid. Jennifer is very open about her life.

One of my favorite parts begins on page 250 and is called A Few Words About Bodies. "Give other women compliments. Learn to accept compliments with grace, not self-deprecation."

"Do not postpone life until ten pounds from now... Putting off joy until you're the right size could mean you'll never experience it at all."

"Tell yourself you're beautiful... Keep your chin up and your shoulders back, as if you are the ruler of all you survey. Carry yourself with confidence and that's what the world will see."

This book is full of wisdom like the above quotes. I highly recommend it!

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

An uneven memoir that chronicles the author's life as a writer, a wife and mother, and mostly a lonely fat girl, a topic that comes up repeatedly. At times her wit comes off callous, like the teenaged mean girls who never let her sit at their table. Her weight is focused on more than the relationship with her father, both of which scarred her and shaped her entire life. But her empathy for other afflictions, noticeably the complete dismissal of a peer's confessed trauma of teenaged acne, is frustrating. Also confusing was the first half of the book focusing on her loneliness, only to reveal towards the end that while she may have struggled to connect with peers and make friends, she was in serious relationships for most of her adult life, undermining the credence of her extreme loneliness and belief that nobody would love her or value her because of her size. Finally, the miscarriage chapter was not only harrowing, but way too detailed for the unprepared. Her graphic depiction will stay in my mind after the rest of the book fades.

[Kimberly Gasuras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book by an amazing author. Jennifer's journey is inspiring and I learned from reading about it. I highly recommend this book for all writers and readers!!

[Obsidian · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this was a very weird book to read. I liked it, didn't love it, and don't really see myself re-reading this for years to come like I will other memoirs written by Roxanne Gay, Jenny Lawson and Mindy Kaling.

I think for me, this book jumped around way too much to get a good handle on things. Plus, Weiner mixed mediums in here. We get part memoir and then she throws in a short story I think that she wrote about her sister and her when they went to visit their grandmother, then it's part commentary to us the reader, her daughters, and then memoir format again.

The initial part of the book starts off in a linear timeline and then that gets shot all to hell in a bit and jumps back and forth until the very end.

I have been reading Jennifer Weiner's books for a very long time. My first exposure to her was "Good in Bed" and I absolutely loved that. I couldn't really relate to "Little Earthquakes" but still enjoyed that book as well. I even liked her foray into short story horror fiction with stories like "Recalculating" and then a couple of her books didn't gel with me and I just pretty much took her from my auto-buy category to well see if you like the sample category. The last two books I read of hers I have really enjoyed though, so will think about putting her books back in the auto-buy category.

I do think that though parts of this book were painfully honest, I didn't get a very good sense of Weiner's family outside of her sister, mother, and grandmother. Her brothers are ghost-like (referred to but rarely appear). We know that her father left her family and that caused a hole that her mother tried to fill. And due to her father not meeting his obligations, the family sounded like they definitely struggled. And reading between the lines and reading what is actually written it sounds like the man had serious mental health issues. I felt for her while reading anything to deal with that. When a parent is gone you can't fix what happened before. So even when there's a slight feeling of relief, you still feel sorrow over that.

I think that if Weiner had stuck with just her life and how that shaped her to be a writer it would have worked better for me. When she goes off and focuses on other things that I thought were interesting, but ultimately didn't fit the book (a male reviewer bashes her and others online via Twitter and there's a huge fallout with that) is when my interest started to wane. It's not that it means she wasn't making a good point. I just didn't get why it was even included.

Other things at times seem to not really be provided enough development for me to get a sense of things. For example, Weiner is a divorced mother of two girls and in a committed relationship with an old boyfriend. She used parts of her life to write "Who Do You Love". But the man in the book is brought up sparingly in the book, and it just felt like he along with all of the men in her memoir don't feel developed. I know that they are all real people, but I don't get a sense of them at all. And the way we readers are introduced to him was weird too. We read about them together first, then work backwards to she met him again, and then someone justifies ending her marriage. I don't know, the whole thing felt uncomfortable. It reminded me of a time I was at a bar waiting on a friend (reading a book of course!) and some man sat next to me asked me how I was doing, I muttered fine, and then before I know it starts telling me how his wife left him for someone else and he needed a drink.



I tried to exit out of that conversation for 20 freaking minutes. I was giving the bartender for the love of all that is holy glances who purposely stayed the heck away from us. So I just had a sense of this is very weird while reading the book and deciding to back away from even trying to explore what point she was trying to get across there.

The writing was at times I felt open. The flow wasn't that great for reasons I said above.

The ending to her daughters I thought was great, but it didn't end as solidly as I think it could have.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hang on, this was good. I'll deal with the chick lit aspect farther down.

Weiner writes about growing up overweight and socially rejected, or feeling that way, with parents who have some issues for reasons that maybe or maybe don't become clear. She grew up Jewish in Connecticut, but far from her extended family in Detroit and her family was pretty well off until her father cut out and ran and went bankrupt.

But she had a plan, become a journalist, maybe like Nora Ephron, write a novel by age 30, have it made into a movie. She would go to Princeton and study under J. D. McClatchy, Ann Lauterbach, John McPhee, Toni Morrison, and Joyce Carol Oates - the biggest influence being McPhee. Then...she would pursue her plan.

At some point midway through the book Weiner is a best selling chick lit author who has a book being made into a movie and complains about a talk she did with Kurt Vonnegut, a hero to her (like a lot of us) and how he trashed her work. (keep perspective, she was on stage with Vonnegut who knew her work well enough to spend time in a talk trashing it. It's not all bad.) Anyway, I figured the interesting part of the book was done. I was wrong.

The book switches gears to a series of set pieces, personal essays about this or that, including her mother, her weight, discovering too much about her father postmortem, having a movie based on her book made, and, my favorite, comparing pets and boyfriends. These essays are terrific. They're smart, entertaining, funny, insightful and a perfect treat for anyone who makes it this far into her book.

So, a moment on the chick lit. We all have our own perspectives, but too me this genre casts an evil pall over literature - crap filling up the best seller lists. But, of course, I haven't read it. But, then what is it? I skimmed samples of Weiner's books and found the opening first person narratives painfully self-indulgent, then I found one I liked that opened 3rd person - it was a young adult novel. But, there is a personal problem, my own biases doing - what - I don't know. I liked how Weiner talked about her books, their autobiographic basis and how she made a thing of making her heroines overweight and having issues with it, like she has had herself. It's, in her own summary versions, of certain value.

I don't know where I stand on all this, other than to see some shades of gray (ha!) in what I thought was concluded. I can't say she pried open my mind, but she had me thinking. The whole first half of this book I was sweating whether I should be wasting my time listening to an author of chick lit, and yet it was good and the book got better and all that concern was unfounded. It just is what it is I guess.

Anyway, this was rewarding to me (and terrifically read by Weiner herself.)

-----------------------------------------------

32. Hungry Heart : Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing by Jennifer Weiner, read by the author
published: 2016
format: Overdrive digital audio, 13:15 (~368 pages)
acquired: Library
listened: July 24 - Aug 8
rating: 4

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't now why I picked this book up. I usually like autobiographies. I've read one of her fiction books and I didn't like that one either. I didn't feel there was any purpose to this.....no enlightenment, no lessons. I didn't feel like this was a person I needed to know about. I know that sounds mean. (I just broke one of my own rules regarding autobiography reviews. Sorry.) It was just hard to relate to this woman.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.chicklitcentral.com/2016/1...

Includes a book giveaway (Ends 10/18)

[Kourtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whenever I finish a book, I am usually good about jumping on the computer the same day and posting a review, or at least my rating. With this book, I had to take a while and noodle it over. On one hand the book felt like a good read...but the other hand had this nagging doubt that I couldn't put my finger on.

I am a fan of Good in Bed, and I have read a couple of other books of Weiner's and enjoyed them. I have quite a few sitting on my bookshelves at home that I need to read (one day...). I also enjoy reading the snarky tweets of The Bachelor series she does, even though I don't watch the show. It's also interesting to see what is going on in the world of publishing that she brings attention to that someone like me would only assume. Picking up this novel after seeing her promoting it, I thought it would be a great insight into her mind.

Enter a collection of essays on her life, that for some reason are not told in order. They mostly are, but a few times the timeline bounces around and I thought to myself, "oh we are going back to that again? Ok...." I went along for the ride though, because Weiner is a great storyteller (and isn't shy of saying so quite a few times throughout the book). Stories about her childhood. Stories about her mom. Grandma. Sister. We all have them and I am a sucker for them. As we progress we see how the relationships change all due to her father's spiral down and her feelings on them. We read about how Good In Bed came to be. How she found her agent and publisher. How In Her Shoes was a great novel but a not-so-well-received movie. We also read about her Twitter life and her relationships. (Be cautious with the miscarriage section as it can be quite graphic).

So why was I so hesitant to jump online and boast about this? I love reading these types of stories - just look at Marian Keyes and Lauren Graham - love them!

But Jennifer Weiner? Errrr...I just felt there were parts that were hypocritical and/or rubbed me the wrong way.

In the chapters about her tweets, she spoke of Joan Didion's dog and explained how she saw an author who capitalized on tragedy in order to sell books. Uhhhhh....ummmm...isn't that what this whole novel is? Didn't you just explain earlier in the book how Good In Bed was based on your feelings and experiences in your life? Didn't you just explain earlier in the book how Little Earthquakes came to be after your stressful delivery and caring for a newborn? Isn't the whole premise about this book capitalizing on your tragedies to sell a book? Sooooo then shouldn't your dogs be worried about you? Your family?

Then there was the section about her dad and how he made the news when a girlfriend of his ripped his *ahem* groin area open where he needed stitches. She made reference to the fact that because of their last name, a lot of news stations and people like Jay Leno picked up the story and used it for jokes. That's all well and good, until Weiner begins to complain about how it made her feel. Don't they realize that he has a family and his children are reading these things people are saying? What's good for the goose, isn't good for the gander for her, because she has no problems skewering the contestants on the reality tv shows she watches and live tweets about. Making fun of people who may not have the best grammar. Making fun of people for how they dress, what they say what they do...I love a good snarky read, as I do judge people, but I'm honest about it. Don't cry a river when people make fun of you, if you just turn around and do it to others.

Little things like that really stuck out in this book, and I found myself saying "but wait...didn't you say xyz earlier in the book?" And because of that, I just can't recommend this. But if you're a fan of Weiner's books and tweets, then by all means pick this up (hey look! I recommended it after all! Must be contagious...)

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writin - Jennifer Weiner I've enjoyed a couple of Weiner's books, but more than her storytelling, I really admire her activism. I lost patience with people ragging on women's writing and writing for women a couple of decades ago. And don't get me started on genre snobbery. I READ POPULAR BOOKS. And so does every highbrow apologist, because the only writings that have survived from previous centuries, let alone millennia, were POPULAR. And it is my belief that writers who worked for pay on deadline, with quick turnaround, are the best.
So I remember many of Weiner's efforts to speak out against the quiet, systemic sexism that denigrates what women do as somehow less valuable than men's. Women young through old are responsible for most of the books read and sold in the U.S., but do they get the majority of the bylines, reviews, or awards? No, they don't even get half. VIDA's got the numbers and they're appalling, as is the fact that the worst offenders do not even have to apologize, because who cares? And the most prestige, the most coverage, the most work continues to go to het white men that no one enjoys reading.
Anyway, Weiner is funiest when writing of the worst times of her life. Her family is screwed up in mostly charming ways. She is always clear that writing is a job, and for anyone interested in following her advice, she presents a refreshingly clear-eyed training plan. So that's all great. But I love the bits when she is actively fighting for justice: I hope she's proud of that work. I hope her daughters are, too.
Library copy

[Lisa Montanaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this memoir. It's funny, insightful, honest, raw, and oh did I mention funny? Jennifer Weiner tackles weighty issues like body image, feminism, the publishing world, parenthood, family, drug addiction, sexual orientation, divorce, social media, and more with humor, grace and depth. At times, I wanted to wrap my arms around her and rock her like a baby telling her it would all be okay. At other times, I wanted to high-five her. But most of the time, I wanted to sit down with her in a café, sipping delicious lattes and talking about these issues for hours. She makes you feel like you're her best friend hanging out with her getting a glimpse into her mind and soul, while making you laugh the entire time. Brava! I've been a fan of her books for years, and now feel like I have seen the real woman behind the author. And I like what I see. Jennifer, you are my kind of peep!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I love her books, this one made me want to tell her to not be so catty and stop playing the victim. Yep, bad stuff happened. Although the tone tried to be "see what I've become " , it was more whiny.

[Sally Ember · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read many of Weiner's novels, so I thought I'd enjoy her essays and personal memoir-type chapters. At first, I did. However, by the fourth or fifth chapter that focused on her obsessions with food, her weight/appearance, others' reactions to same, and other related topics, I was bored and disgusted. Too much about the same topics: this book needed a better editor.

Not only did Weiner decide to have a dangerous surgical intervention (bariatric surgery) that helped her get and may (or may not) help her stay smaller (but still "overweight" by current cultural standards), she continued to obsess over the same things, anyway. Reading these essays became as tedious and repetitious as having conversations with some former drinkers or drug addicts because they only want to talk/write about drinking and addiction. I don't want to hear it nearly as much as they want to share about it.

So, all right. She did change it up, writing about parenting, relationships, motherhood, her childhood, her college years, her siblings and adult family members. But, the best essays (IMHO) were about her professional life: her writing process, getting jobs, getting agents, getting published, getting her books made into movies, and all that went with those experiences.

While I can appreciate the courage and commitment it took for her to publish (and republish) the more revealing and personal essays, I simply do not care about her personal life and didn't want to read so much about it.

I'm sure some readers/fans crave these personal details and will be delighted that she overshared.

[Oreoandlucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A more complete review is available on my blog:
http://reviewsofbooksonmynightstand.b...

When I added this book to by to my TBR list, I thought it would be a similar memoir to Jen Lancaster's memoirs. Lancaster is funny, relate-able and endlessly entertaining. Reviews described Weiner's memoir as funny and compared her work to that of Tina Fey's (of which I did find funny). I did not see that as the case with this memoir. About 70% of this book is about Weiner's childhood and early adulthood. It is entertaining and, at times, funny. The other 30% of the book ruined it for me, though. She spent most of that time complaining and whining.

I would probably be a fan of Weiner's novels, as she describes them in Hungry Heart. I probably will read Good in Bed and Little Earthquakes at some point, despite never having read anything by Jennifer Weiner before. Her memoir, however, did not sit well with me. I had to push myself to finish it through all the kvetching, moaning and then the hypocrisy. When I read a memoir, I don't need to believe the same things as the writer or agree with what they do. I don't even need to understand why they believe what they believe or do what they do but I do need an honesty and consistency that I did not find in this memoir. For this reason, I have to give it two out of five stars and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that I know, especially not a girl or young woman who I wanted to feel better about her body.

[Emmkay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jennifer Weiner writes commercial women's fiction. I haven't read any of her novels yet, but often enjoy writers' memoirs so gave hers a try. It begins as a chronological memoir but then shifts into a collection of essays, many of which continue to fill in the story of her life to date but kind of fit in the gaps in the story she was telling in the first part of the book. There was lots to be interested in - her views on the lack of respect for commercial women's fiction, her family dynamics, her start in journalism and getting her first novel published. But it also felt overlong and underdone, the latter both in terms of the editing and structure (chapters comprised of tweets, I'm looking at you!) and also the degree to which I got the feeling she thinks she's more done than she really is with processing things in her own background that still bother her tremendously. Probably true of all of us, but here it meant she dwelt at length on and circled back to certain themes in a way that didn't quite work for me - maybe the reason she was left with a hybrid structure too? It was an odd, uneven read as a result. 2.5.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh, I think she is the original mean girl. I think I have maybe read two of her books quite a while ago, never realized how autobiographical they were, and don't follow her on social media so didn't realize what was in store. This came up as a recommended title on my kindle right before I got on a cross country flight, so I was in a position of reading this or nothing. Not only was there a lot of repetition of the same anecdotes, but I found myself disengaging from her more and more with every page. She came across, to me, as really negative in how she portrayed almost everyone but some family members, entitled, and whiney. Not a fun read for me.

[Tina Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer Weiner has always been one of my favorite authors so I was interested to find out how she became an author. The obstacles she had to overcome in her life has made me appreciate her writing even more. She is an author who truly appreciates her life! After reading this book I want to give her a big hug! Looking forward to more of her books!

[Kayla Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored Weiner’s raw and honest story about how her childhood — and particularly her strained relationship with her father — impacted her life and subsequent storytelling. I especially appreciated how deeply she talked about the role of food and body image have been rooted in her self image and ultimately, career.

[Judy Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A special thank you to Atria and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Love the cover!

We all fell in love with Jennifer Weiner's fictional stories; from her very first book to the present. Her signature wit and honesty once again gives readers an inside look at the talented author (the woman behind the words) and her incredible journey. A total reveal.

A huge Weiner fan, having read all her entertaining books, HUNGRY HEART further reiterates the author’s passion and talent. Where no subject is off-limits in her essay collection: from sex, weight, image, money, motherhood, lesbianism (mother), love, dating, daughters, childbirth, social media, and her estranged father’s death.

Weiner’s first memoir is deeply honest and insightful- An empowering personal account of the author's childhood to adulthood and everything in between. Readers will laugh and cry, caught up in Weiner’s witty and heartfelt stories, and reminded of our favorite reads. You will find yourself drawn to different parts which are relatable.

"You fall down. You get hurt. You get up again. Women stories matter. They tell us who we are, they give us places to explore our problems, to try on identities and imagine happy endings. They entertain us, they divert us, they comfort us when we’re lonely or along. Women’s stories matter. A women matters, too."

Weiner always delivers stories which matter - from the heart. From her childhood dream of becoming a published author, she has taken stands, and taken the heat, and has changed the world. From a father who left, a mother which came out of the closet, her girls, a marriage.

Stories of hunger. Wanting something from the world: love, approval, a boyfriend, a husband, a sense of belonging, a way of doing some good. We all want something. Wanting is the human condition. The ifs. Seeking perfection. Learning as we get older- there is no finish line, or if there is, it keeps moving.

Jennifer entertains readers while leading us through successes, failures, fears, and dreams. She makes us laugh. Her books, and adventures– the ups and down.

I particularly enjoyed the parts about Florida and Nanna (can relate). The parts of pain, guilt, shame and sorrow, and spinning them into fiction. How they took life. From Good in Bed about weight screwed up funny families and finding happiness in spite of it all.

My Favorite Parts:
• Her second book, and one of my favorites of Weiner: (and movie), "In Her Shoes": weight, sisters, family labels. Filming in Delray Beach, FL, south of West Palm Beach and her Nanna -ninety at the time, making sure she was featured; to rank her as the number-one grandchild. (Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine).

• "A Few Words About Bodies" Learning to tell the difference between hungry and sad, angry and bored. Honor each of those feeling wit what it requires. Eat when you’re hungry, cry when you’re sad, deal with your anger and boredom, but don’t stuff them down with food, or booze, or men, or pills, or whatever else might be available.

• "Mean Girls in the Retirement Home" (NYT 2015) Again, a story about Nanna. I can relate since I live in Florida in a senior independent living where everyone is so caddy. Hilarious!

• "Letters to her daughters: Lucy and Phoebe" (Time, 2015) What is coming next.
"Within the next few years, some people- not all, but some- will stop seeing you as you, and start seeing just your surface; your face, your hair, your body. They will reduce you to a body instead of seeing you as a person. If you succeed, they will whisper, or write, that you must have slept with someone important to have gotten whatever you go."

"If you speak up, they will try to shame you into silence, because—and it breaks my heart to write these words—that’s the way some people think women ought to be. My prayer is that you’ll never lose sight of yourself—all of yourself.” “Love your bodies for what they can do.”

My least favorite part of the book was the tweets (not a fan of The Bachelor). However, commend her for loving social media. “It’s where movements coalesce, where evildoers are exposed, where wrongs are righted and justice prevails.” Twitter, 29,300 funny tweets--of course, is also a "cesspit of crude, hateful misogyny, insults and name-calling and poorly considered tirades, delivered in impulsive and regrettable hundred-and-forty-character blurbs."

It is a place where she hopes, she has done some good, and a place where for sure she has had fun, a place where she has been horribly humiliated, and made mistakes and said things she regretted.

Just as her fiction has entertained women for years, HUNGRY HEART, Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing -the memoir will charm and inspire you, just as much. It is powerful, insightful, funny, smart, and courageous.

She turns herself inside out for the world to see. The woman behind the books, furthermore affirming her special gift and talent as an author, mother, and a powerful feisty woman we all admire and respect. We love you!

PS. I want to see more Jennifer Weiner action, on Younger!

JDCMustReadBooks

[Lynne Spreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It isn't often that I cry at the end of a memoir--or in the middle of it--but with Hungry Heart, I did. Although Jennifer Weiner began life in affluence, her father abandoned the family as Jennifer began her second year at university. She was pulled out of line and sent to the bursar's office where she learned her tuition had not been paid. With her mother's help, she got student loans that would last for the next several decades. She also got a second job and learned to survive. With her fellow interns, she found a bar that offered "...dips and vegetables, crackers and cheese for free during happy hour. I'd try not to notice the waitress's scowl as I'd load, and then refill, my tiny plate, trying to eat enough to stay full until breakfast." When she develops a hunger for success, it's not for money but for security, because "instability marks you. It leaves you feeling permanently uneasy..."

"I left Princeton with a transcript full of As and summa cum laude on my diploma...Out in the world, I tried, as hard as I could, to believe in my own worth..."

A challenge made immeasurably more difficult by the fact that Jennifer Weiner isn't a size 2, or even a 12. The book chronicles her difficulties around weight, trying to learn self-acceptance in spite of a larger self. I think most women will cry in recognition of the devaluation we feel when all we are is distilled into the single dimension of looks. (I once overheard a "close friend" - I guess, not really - say about me, "She'd be okay if she lost 30 pounds." As hard as I had worked to be a good person, a standout employee, a loyal citizen--well, you never forget.)

By the time her first book is sold, the reader delights in the happy ending--except we're only halfway through the book, yay.

At this point, JW takes a side trip into her present-day life of social media ups and downs; an ardent feminist (thank you) and cultural observer, she learns the hard way that Twitter is a rough playground at times. She comments on the sexism in the literary world and is vindicated (although by all indications, it's alive and well, still). It's funny and annoying and interesting.

Then she returns to memoir with the description of her father's death, and the horrifying revelations subsequently unearthed. Human beings are complicated, and her father was a heartbreaking example. Again, another relatable, compelling part of her story--some relationships will never be resolved, and our challenge is to adapt and thrive in spite of the pain.

I'm not sure why Jennifer Weiner wrote this memoir, but it seemed generous that she would. In telling of her challenges and failures, she demonstrates how a person might persevere; in calling out the challenges and failures of our culture, she illuminates where we might do better. And through all of it, she keeps her sense of humor, laughing at herself and with us. A wonderful book. I recommend it.

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jennifer Weiner changed my life before I ever read her books. During the fall of 2004 I reluctantly attended one of her readings. Subsequently, I was hypnotized by her charm, her wit, and her story of becoming a bestselling novelist. She inspired and motivated me that evening. A few days later I enrolled at a local community college. A few years later I graduated from a local university. All because of that chance encounter.

Since then I have enjoyed several of her novels (Good in Bed and Fly Away Home are my favorites), and the film adaptation of In Her Shoes (very underrated). I've never been Weiner's "target" audience and that never really mattered to me. At the risk of sounding over dramatic, she changed my life. Now, twelve years after that initial encounter I still follow Weiner on social media, TiVo her on GMA (Good Morning America), and remain interested in her writing. Hungry Heart, her first nonfiction book, was especially exciting because it presented an opportunity to learn more about her life and her writing process. Plus, the book boasted that "no subject is off limits."

In this collection of essays, Weiner discusses all the usual suspects - weight, love, parenting, family, writing, etc... Some of which felt familiar (about her mother), some not so familiar (about her father), some I thoroughly enjoyed (the success of Good in Bed/the film adaptation of In Her Shoes), and some I couldn't relate to (motherhood). Hungry Heart is thoughtful and warm, but it only confirmed what I've been feeling lately- we've grown apart. Many times during this book I was struck by how impactful Weiner's experiences might be for young female writers. At times, It felt like I was privy to a conversation that wasn't meant for me, even though I was welcomed to listen.

I appreciate Jennifer Weiner. She's a fabulous role model and a champion for women. But, I'm afraid we don't have much in common, and maybe we never did? I guess this is why I'm not her target audience... and why should I be? There are plenty of books for jaded middle-aged men (like me) to draw inspiration from. Nevertheless, it's always a good idea to read broadly (it's great for the soul!).

Highly recommended for her targeted audience, you know who you are.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was torn reading this trying to separate the quality of her writing and storytelling with her sad views and problematic descriptions of people. I think Weiner is witty and passionate and has many good things to say. For instance, I agree that women should be as equally respected and represented in the world of writing as men are and that they should not be shamed or neglected because of their appearance. I also agree that Toni Collette wasn't possibly trying hard enough to gain weight for her role in In Her Shoes (that chapter was hilarious). However, my two strongest take aways from this book were enough to make me feel more negative than positive about it.

My first take away is that she doesn't address past or present wrongs very well. She was and is bullied for her appearance and views, but instead of moving on or finding different ways to cope or address these issues, she uses her witty and straightforward writing to attack back in the same harsh way. I got the sense that she wanted to get back at all her high-school nemeses and used her celebrated author status to do so...rather inappropriately. I am not sure if she changed the names of all those she roasted, as she doesn't mention either way, but I was terribly uncomfortable listening to her shoot them down with all the ammo she saved over the years.

My second take away is the fact that she supports the awful view that a baby is only as valuable as the feelings a person is willing or able to devote to them. Her miscarriage portion was terrible. But, her sadness was not that she lost a baby, but that she was never going to get a baby. She was overjoyed with being pregnant and then back tracked saying it was just a pregnancy, not a child. Her sadness was based on a broken hope for a child and not an actual person. This view is hypocritical as she has stated that she fights for love and equality in this world. After all, those who bullied her failed to see her value just as she fails to see value in the unborn.

All that being said, I appreciate her advocacy for women equality. It's just not the version of feminism I can 100% get behind.

[Sarah Obsesses over Books & Cookies · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars and Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this for a review.

I love Jennifer Weiner's books. I have read most of them, all fiction and was happy to hear she was putting out some essays. I honestly adored most of this book but there were some parts that I wasn't as thrilled with. The parts specifically aren't important because with any collection whether it's memoir or short stories there might be stuff that you don't love.
So what i DID love about this book was her honesty and her incredible memory for putting her past down on paper. It flowed like well done fiction and I was pulled into her life. I honestly knew nothing of her real life and was surprised at all the heartbreak with her father. I related on multiple levels with it. Also she talks candidly about her marriage and having children and boyfriends that were there for reasons even if destined not to work out. I think my favorite part was the essay on her becoming a writer and finding an agent and the constant that was her believing in herself and taking the time to do what she really wanted to do.
I had a hard time with the part about her talking about her weight and body image, specifically about her opting to get the surgery. She comes out and says that she's been more or less a poster child for self acceptance and then going to get surgery might not gel together and I agree-- so I applaud her for admitting that there's a slight juxtaposition but at the same time there is this little bit of disappointment. But then again i'm not *in her shoes. Either way it was a great book and loved learning about her.

[Lindsay Nixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I started this memoir I didn’t know who Weiner was... her name was unfamiliar to me (I assumed she was an actress)

As it turns out I had read one of her books (gave it 5-stars) and another of her books had been turned into a movie I liked (In Her Shoes) — But those positives didn’t improve this memoir for me.

I like memoirs that have points/pearls of wisdom/lessons to be shared or offer up a perspective that’s new to me. At the very least I seek humor, entertainment or validations and this memoir provided none of these things for me.

DNF! After 10 chapters I couldn’t push on. Another review wrote this was an uneven memoir (very much yes) personal essays that go no where and don’t connect (yes yes) and it’s mostly her angst/complaining and/or crying about how mean kids were to her while in the same breathe putting others down and doing that herself. For example she was bullied for being chubby but then goes on to talk about how gross another kids acne is or how one girl had terrible bad breathe (these were not the bullies). She also was sooo lonely but was surrounded by constant boyfriends and friends which I guess explains the hungry heart title—looking for love and validation outside herself instead of giving it to herself and finding it within. If her stories start sounding familiar check out Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional families.

There’s also so much focus on her body and size that I stated to feel like she was giving ME and eating disorder.

[Christina (Confessions of a Book Addict) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jennifer Weiner's memoir is a detailed glimpse into her life that starts when she is a young child all the way to present day. Readers get to know Jennifer as a precocious child living in her Connecticut hometown; she has always felt out of place though and skipping a grade only made this much more challenging for her socially. Plus, she never felt like she fit in since she wasn't slim and classically pretty like her sister and her family was a bit quirky, not to mention Jewish, which, apparently, wasn't the norm in her town. She examines the sometimes trying relationships with her family, especially her father. As she goes to college at Princeton, Weiner shares her experiences as an aspiring writer, her classes as well as the goals she set for herself after college. But this memoir isn't just about school and family. Weiner focuses on marriage, motherhood, parenting. love, miscarriage, and her struggles with her weight. As a woman, I appreciated many aspects of Hungry Heart and and as a fan of Weiner's sarcasm and honesty, I appreciated the memoir even more.
Read the rest of my review here: http://www.confessionsofabookaddict.c...

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book of non-fiction by Jennifer Weiner almost as much as I enjoy her fiction, if that's even possible. In both formats, she writes with honesty and humor about society's fixation on women's looks and size and how it affects women who don't measure up (or down). She discusses her writing and having a film made from her second book, In Her Shoes. ( I HAD to rent and watch this right away to see her and her grandmother's parts as extras as well the scenes shot in her home town, Philadelphia.) She talks about her family and how they have influenced her and her writing. Other favorites: "Never Breastfeed in a Sweater Dress, and Other Parenting Tips I Learned the Hard Way" and "Mean Girls in the Retirement Home."
(Note: I received pre-publication to this title through Edelweiss.)