Unbearable Lightness book review

Unbearable Lightness, the vivid autobiography of Portia de Rossi, artfully relays the true experience of the author's struggle with the film and modeling industries and their heavy impact on her social anxiety, eating disorder, and sexuality. From the very first page, I was completely enthralled in a graphic account of an episode of restriction, binge eating, and the subsequent unbearable guilt, horrifying to even read out loud to myself. The last few lines of the prologue are haunting as de Rossi describes her overpowering shame: "I'm alarmed by the silence; the voice has stopped. When it's quiet in my head like this, that's when the voice doesn't need to tell me how pathetic I am. I know it in the deepest part of me. When it’s quiet like this, that’s when I truly hate myself” (8). From these evocative words, de Rossi launches into the first chapter, starting with memories from her first major show, Ally McBeal, that will spark her into Hollywood fame as well as deepening her body image issues and paranoia about her sexuality. Although de Rossi gives a sarcastic, almost nonchalant account of her deep anxiety, her writing style merely emphasizes the almost crazed person she was during her time trying to jump start her acting career. The fact that she never questions the cruel Hollywood standards of women, never once disputes the harsh critiques of her body made by a toxic industry, never even doubts her own mother’s harmful urging of unhealthy dieting, all of these silences make de Rossi’s story more painful to read and wipes away the glitz and glam of the film and modelling industries to reveal an ugly undergrowth. The undergrowth being a monstrous dark hand controlling the way women look, act, and think, and glamorizing it to the point where participants in the game that is Hollywood become self-obsessed and paranoid about breaking those standards. I highly recommend this book to any amateur looking to pursue modelling or acting because de Rossi's story is representative of a problem with Hollywood and the industry. In a short 100 pages, de Rossi has completely caught my attention with her retelling of the beginnings of her career and her personal struggles with body image issues, breaking into the film industry, and coming to terms with her sexuality. I’m intrigued to read more about de Rossi’s story and her rebirth from her fall.