Jasmin Singer

The 4-1/2 stars is for the superb memoir. 5 full stars for her early years and coming to veganism and only a half star off for the latter part describing how she achieves weight loss and better health through juice fasting. If this were written as a diet book, it would pain me but I couldn’t give it more than 3 stars. But it’s a memoir and I can’t argue with someone’s personal experience.

This is a wonderful memoir. It’s funny, poignant, and extremely honest all the way through. I was so impressed. I loved reading a memoir by a fellow vegan. I was able to identify with the author so much in many ways, but not every way. She’s lucky she’s had a lifelong loving family, though definitely not free of problems in their relationships. I felt as though I got to know her really well and could see being friends with her. Her early life and coming to veganism was really interesting and interesting for me to read about. Her becoming vegan was what I most identified with but I also identified with many of her issues with food and eating and weight. I admire how she was driven and accomplished and took risks throughout her life. Her life has been interesting and worthy as a subject of this book.

She expresses so well how being fat (and then thin) and her food addictions have affected her and how all her life experiences have shaped her.

Speaking of addictiveness, this book was so hard to put down, even in the last parts when I had personal problems with the solutions presented.

I do want to say that I was mightily triggered by this book, and not just with food, eating, not eating, fat phobia, and other such issues. Any reader who has issues that can act as triggers should know they might feel triggered when reading this book. (Feel free to ask if you want specifics.) It was worth it to me to have read this but at times it was trigger after trigger after trigger. This is true of triggers re things that have affected me personally and also those that have not but incited strong painful feelings in me anyway.

On my personal stance: I cannot stress too strongly how much I do not believe in juice fasts, especially when they’re done for 10 or even 3 days every month and not simply made the occasional meal. I cannot and will not argue with what has been effective for this author and her wife, and many others. For me, I don’t do well with diet culture at all and yes this is a diet. Better for sure than vegan junk food but still interfering with living life on the juice days. Also for me I believe in eating whole foods and not drinking my calories. Yes, this author and her wife evolved over time, including sometimes leaving the fiber in the juices, which is healthier, and all but one of their juices are vegetable vs. fruit based so maybe not so risky for diabetes, and once again, definitely better than junk and processed foods, and it’s made clear on eating days they eat mostly whole foods vegan. Can’t argue with that. This is just a personal rant. Spending so much time and effort on (not) eating would be bad for me personally, actually destructive, and perhaps I’m a tad jealous that even if I could afford to juice this way, I don’t have the money or the space for the needed equipment, nor a partner to do it with, which I think would be easier.

I’m happy for them that juice fasts helped maintain a good weight and good health. I do think that (within reason) people have to do what’s best for them, and after reading all the pain the author had endured I’m happy for her.

That said, I don’t even believe “detoxing” and “cleansing” are even things. Our livers, kidneys, etc. do that for us no matter what we ingest. So I can’t recommend this as a health or diet book, but I can heartily recommend this as a memoir. For me, doing what she’s doing, would be trading in one form of disordered eating for another, even if a much healthier version. I can’t do the diet culture thing. It’s simply not for me. I do admit that it seems as though Jasmin and Mariann are making it work well for them. Kudos to them!

I loved reading about her grandmother and it highlights how it’s never too late to make changes in our lives. I appreciated how her coming to veganism is seamlessly woven into the rest of her story. The discrimination she faced in being fat AND her reactions to how people treated her when she became thin and so much else about her life experiences definitely resonated with me.

I do hold her in great esteem and am so glad she wrote this book. I think it might be inspirational to many people and I can’t imagine vegans not identifying with it and appreciating it.

I was entertained by it but it was also painful for me to read, the latter often true when I read autobiographical and biographical accounts. If this review seems to be a bit of the mess I think it is, it’s because I’m a bit of a mess after reading it. It’s a powerful and beautifully told memoir and a great read so I’m upping it to 5 stars.… (plus d'informations)