Kirkus Review
Hunger takes on new meaning in O'Brien's memoir about love, longing, and an ever growling stomach.Many people have written about eating disorders, but a parent-inflicted eating regime is less-trod territory. In her debut memoir, the author tackles the uncomfortable truth of her mother's obsession with healthy food. Year's before paleo, detox, and Atkins would become common terms, O'Brien's mother was on a mission to heal her body through her diet. But eating healthy wasn't enough. The author's mother forced "The Program" on her four children and TV-executive husband as well. That meant "blended salads," juices, steamed vegetables, and rice three meals per day, with no meat and no cheating. "Drink your blended salad before it oxidizes," O'Brien's mother would encourage her children. Of course, all of this was also served with a heaping side of guilt, and the residual self-reproach left a bad taste in the author's mouth for years. It wasn't until college that O'Brien allowed herself a few crumbs of a brownie. "The brownies are gone and I'm suddenly left with the consequences of what I've done," she writes. "What was I thinking? White flour and egg whites take B vitamins from the body. Chocolate never leaves our system. I feel seared with sadness.I can no longer consider myself pure." But bad habits die hard, and even after allowing meat and sugar into her diet, O'Brien struggled with eating shame. Not surprisingly, the aftermath of a childhood deprived of sweets and meats also took its toll on her siblings, although each coped and recovered in his or her own way. Ultimately, this story isn't just about food; it's about the mother-daughter bond and how the desire to please one's parents may never go away. O'Brien ably articulates this challenging relationship all children and parents struggle with, be it through food, favoritism, or failure to love.A book that makes the topic of hunger entirely satisfying. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
O'Brien offers a peek behind the facade of her privileged childhood in this compelling memoir. Growing up in the Dakota Apartments with glamorous parents her father, the legendary ABC executive Edgar Scherick, and her mother, Carol, a former beauty queen the author and her brothers were subject to their father's volatile temper and their mother's eccentricity. Carol, who suffered lifelong health problems due to a farming accident, turns to extreme nutrition to help herself when doctors can't find anything wrong. She becomes convinced that the Program, a diet instituted by a crooked doctor, will save them all. Her devotion to the Program never wavers, even as her constantly hungry children sneak food and her marriage starts falling apart. O'Brien is a descriptive writer, and it is easy to imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of her childhood. She loses steam late in the book, writing about her own marriage and children, and rushes her ending. Still, that does little to take away from this page-turner, reminiscent of Caroline Knapp's and Jeannette Walls' memoirs.--Kathy Sexton Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
O'Brien's father is Edgar Scherick, a celebrated producer of television and film. Her mother, Carol, slips from one identity to another, but always ambitiously: The Missouri farm girl morphs into a Miss America pageant finalist, the upper-class New York wife rebels and becomes a natural food devotee. O'Brien and her brothers live in the Dakota and trick-or-treat along the building's forbidding hallways, getting Tootsie Pops from Lauren Bacall. This is one version of a 20th-century fairy tale. The fable has a dark side. O'Brien's father is given to terrifying outbursts of anger when under stress, which is often. Her mother suffers from a series of health problems, which she begins managing with food. Embarking on a lifetime of restrictive diets, Carol decides that her family will come along for the ride. Soon the children are put on "The Program" by an unlicensed doctor whose Mafioso clients keep watch on the street lest he be jailed. From then on, the kids are sustained - barely - by blended salads, celery juice, egg yolks and the occasional handful of nuts. It's remarkable how little anger O'Brien conveys in relating her mother's disordered approach to eating. The children follow Carol's instructions more or less obediently, despite being divided from normal society by their inability to enjoy simple treats. When O'Brien caves and eats a Ho Ho, she's horrified at having "erased my hard work and all the purity" she had worked for. Perfection seems to be the price of her mother's affection, an exchange that will have lifelong repercussions for O'Brien's relationship to food. The story drags at times. O'Brien's father seems always to be "whiny" and "high-pitched" when on the verge of rage. Reading about a diet of puréed vegetables is almost as tiresome as living on one. But O'Brien describes her unusual childhood with loving generosity. She captures her father's vulnerability and creative brilliance, and recognizes her mother's pioneering, seeking spirit. After all, this was a woman who embraced Ayurveda, meditation and co-op shopping long before they became mainstream. The family's story is one of renunciation, but not, ultimately, one of hunger.
Library Journal Review
Food and family play out on the forefront of this memoir from O'Brien (English, St. Mary's Coll.), who struggles to find herself and happiness alongside domineering, television executive father Edgar and controlling, former beauty queen mother Carol. In an effort to cure ailments and fortify her family, Carol places everyone on "The Program," a diet regimen consisting of fruit juices, blended salads, and egg yolks. Here begins O'Brien's challenges with cravings; a psychological demon that spreads beyond the kitchen and into her relationships with friends and her body. In an effort to achieve purity, O'Brien is racked with guilt each time she strays from "The Program," at last indulging and satisfying her constant hunger. After becoming a mother herself and understanding the dangers posed to her own children, she comes to empathize with her mother's need to control and protect her family with food. The development of her own wellness plan, designed to fulfill her nutritional and emotional needs, is a lifelong battle that she seems to overcome through constant reflections on her life. VERDICT A thoroughly engaging memoir; recommended where memoirs circulate widely.-Mattie Cook, Flat River Community Lib., MI © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
