Book Review: Born Round

I just finished reading Frank Bruni’s Born Round: A Story of Family, Food, and a Ferocious Appetite and I have to say, without equivocation, that it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time.

I’m upset with myself for waiting so long to read this book.  I had heard about it more than a year ago, but at the time I felt like I didn’t want to read one more memoir about someone who was overweight and struggling to get thinner.  In a way I think I picked up this book exactly when I needed it most, as I am about to embark on what I hope is my last weight loss effort and what will lead me to the more difficult part of weight loss – maintenance (that seems so far off, but I know that if things work out as they should, it will be here within the next few years).  This book isn’t meant to be a guidebook as to how to lose weight, but I gleaned so much from it that I do think it made me think differently in terms of my approach to weight loss, eating, and enjoying life.  It’s a memoir about struggling to lose weight, but it’s also so, so much more.

It’s the “so much more” that I think I enjoyed the most.  I won’t go into a full review here, so if you’d like you can read the one I wrote on Goodreads.

To recap the book, it begins with Bruni as a child who had an insatiable appetite from the start.  He recounts that even as a baby his mother could never produce enough bottles to satisfy his unending hunger.  He was born into an Italian-American family so much like my own that I had to see whether or not we were actually related somehow.   His father’s family is from the same area of Italy that my father’s family comes from, which isn’t too common.  And although is mother and many of his aunts weren’t of Italian heritage, they quickly adopted the Italian culture as their own and began competing with each other in the lavish holidays they’d host, filled with dishes that each one claimed as their own.  I felt as if I was reading about my own mother and family members throughout this entire section.  When Bruni delves into the darkness of his eating disorders and binges, I felt his struggle so fiercely that they were like my own.  In many ways his out-of-control eating reminded me of the times when I’ve felt the same way.  The self-imposed shame, degradation, and promises to improve have often come from my lips, as well.  When he hits his highest weight and seems to recoil from the world around him, I could relate to that too, to a degree.  And later, when he finally seems to figure out how to enjoy relish food, but not be a slave to it, I felt myself wishing for the same.

Along the way Bruni includes so many self and family photos  that you really do feel as though you know all of them.  I loved this aspect of the book, and think adding the pictures definitely makes the reader feel more connected.  Especially when reading a book as personal, honest, and raw as this one.

It was towards the latter section of the book, when Bruni is able to review his life a bit, that the most poignant quotes could be found.

I think the difference,” I told him, “is how much I’d rather be like this.  Once I pulled myself out of whatever it was I’d sunk into, I never wanted to go back.  I was pretty miserable.  I think remember that and concentrating on how I feel now — being aware of how much better it is — that’s the difference.  I’m determined in a way I wasn’t” (Bruni).*

*The one thing I dislike about the Kindle is that it doesn’t tell you the page number you’re on.  It gives a “location,” but that has nothing to do with the actual page number that you’d be on if you had a paper book in your hand.  I wish they’d change that, because it makes proper citation impossible.

This greatly resonated with me.  Through all of his crazy diets, eating disorders, etc., it wasn’t until Bruni finally realized that he wanted to enjoy food, but not in a dysfunctional way.  He chose quality over quantity.  He had moved to Rome to be a foreign correspondant, and he says that he thinks the reason why Italians (and so many Europeans, for that matter) are thinner than most Americans isn’t because they exercise more or eat healthier, but because of the portions of their food.  He was eating out most of the time while he was in Italy, yet because the portions were smaller and he enjoyed the richness of the offerings, he didn’t feel the need to gorge himself on junk.  He stopped snacking, started walking, and lost weight. It made me realize that once I get the Lab Band surgery, I’ll be able to accomplish the same thing.  That’s the beauty of the band.  It’s a tool that helps you keep your portions in check.  (Not that you can’t “cheat the band,” but if I’m going through all of this to get the surgery, you’d better believe that I’m not going to do that).  This quote really made me realize that I will feel the same thing that Bruni felt when he wrote this passage.  Once I start losing a significant amount of weight, that will become the impetus to continue to lose, and eventually maintain a healthy weight.

I concluded right or quite complete.  The main difference between then and now wasn’t determination.  It was honesty.  I didn’t lie to myself the way I had in the past.  I especially didn’t lie to myself about food.

When I was honest with myself, I had to acknowledge that there’d never been, and would never be, a magic eating or dieting formula that overrode and erased whatever volume of food I consumed: no skeleton key to a skeletal me…

…I had to admit that the success or failure of every diet I’d ever attempted boiled down to the most basic equation of all: how much energy I expended versus how much fuel I took in.  And no matter what I’d once tried to tell myself, I always knew, in the course of a given day, whether this eequation was out of whack.

When I was truthful, I could see all of that.

The truth: this selfawareness might well spare me any further rides on the gain-and-loss roller-coaster, might put an end to yo-yo me.

The truth: I couldn’t be sure.  For now I was on the straight and narrow – or narrowish.  But it might not stay that way.  I was getting slower and creakier, but I was trying.  I was making a real effort” (Bruni).

I won’t even analyze that quote, because I think the words Bruni wrote speak for themselves.

I gained so much from reading this book (no pun intended), and I would highly recommend it to everyone. If you’re like me and after finishing it you want to read more from Frank Bruni, be sure to check out the journals on his website.

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