Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope

With captivating blue eyes and dark hair, Jenny Lauren looked as though she’d stepped out of one of the ads for which her uncle, Ralph Lauren, is famous. It was not long, however, before she found herself in a world where it was easy to see herself as less than perfect. She was ten years old when she first starved herself. After many years of bingeing, purging, and compulsively exercising, her body fell apart. Her colon herniated and she was forced to undergo surgery. At twenty-four, living in chronic pain, she wrote Homesick as a cautionary tale that she hoped would touch many.

This unflinching account details her struggle with anorexia and bulimia, yet is also a much larger story that focuses on universal the intricacies of family ties, the pressures of society, the search for selfhood, and ultimately the power of hope. With flashes of wit and a knowing beyond its young writer’s years, Homesick is a riveting and emotionally complex story of pain and hard-won recovery that no reader will forget.