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Hardcover: William Morrow, May 27, 2008,
ISBN-10: 0060843292
ISBN-13: 978-0060843298

With her signature acerbic wit and captivating insight, the author of the wildly popular Straight Up And Dirty offers a powerful and beautifully stark portrait of adolescence

While pregnant with twins, one sentence uttered by her doctor sends Stephanie Klein reeling: “You need to gain fifty pounds.” Instantly, an adolescence filled with insecurity, disappointment, and embarrassment comes flooding back. Though she is determined to gain the weight for the health of her babies—even if it means she’ll “weigh more than a Honda” —she can only express what deep fear this causes by telling her doctor simply, “I used to be fat.”

Stephanie was a seventh-grader with a weight problem. It was a problem at school, where the boys called her “Moose” and her only friends were the nerds and misfits, and it was a problem at home, where her father reminded her, “No one likes fat girls.” After several unsuccessful attempts at dieting and many frustrating sessions with a nutritionist known as the Fat Doctor of Roslyn Heights, Long Island, Stephanie’s parents enrolled her for a summer at fat camp. Determined to return to school thin and popular, without her “lard arms” and “puckered ham,” Stephanie embarked on a memorable journey that would shape more than just her body. It would shape her life.

In the ever-shifting terrain between fat and thin, adulthood and childhood, cellulite and starvation, Stephanie shares the cutting details of what it truly feels like to be an overweight child, from the stinging taunts of classmates, to the off-color remarks of her own father, to her thin mother’s compulsive dissatisfaction with her own body. Calling upon her childhood diary entries to jog her memory, Klein opens up and uncovers her deepest thoughts and feelings from that turbulent, hopeful time, baring her soul and making her heartache palpable.

Whether Klein is describing her life as a chubby adolescent camper—getting weighed on a meat scale, petting past curfew, and “chunky dunking” in the lake—or what it’s like now as a fit mother, having one-sided conversations with her newborn twins about the therapy they’ll one day need, this hilarious yet grippingly vulnerable book will remind you what it was like to feel like an outsider, to desperately seek the right outfit, the right slang, the best comeback, or whatever that unattainable something was that would finally make you fit in.


Kirkus Reviews
A candid memoir of the author’s struggle with her weight. When Klein (Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir, 2006), a self-professed rotund adolescent turned nicely shaped adult, was told by her pre-term labor specialist that she must gain 50 pounds before giving birth, the author understandably balked. “If I gained 50 pounds, I’d weigh more than a Honda,” she notes, “and certainly more than my husband, which was worse.” Her doctor’s edict transported her back to childhood, which was filled with taunts, unrequited crushes and unhealthy processed food. Klein recalls when she hit “156 pounds and change” despite numerous trips to a local nutritionist, after which she was sent off to Camp Yanisin, an overnight camp where overweight children learn how to eat and exercise properly. The most important lessons came not from the counselors, but from fellow campers, who all battled the same demons. A popular blogger, Klein is occasionally honest to the point of discomfort, but her sense of humor and appreciation of the absurd temper her periodic self-pity and make her sophomore outing at once readable and inspiring. When things get too heavy (no pun intended), there’s a childhood diary entry to lighten the mood: “I’m considered ‘hot’ at this camp. I’m going to get so much booty when I get home-don’t get me wrong, I’m not a slut. I just have a hard time saying ‘no.’ “With vivid characterizations, spot-on locale descriptions and sly jokes at her own expense, Klein offers an original and touching take on the all-too-common problem of childhood obesity.
Reader reviews of Moose»


Hardcover: Regan Books, July 2006, ISBN: 0-0608-4327-6

“I did have my own friends, my own salary, my health, and TiVo: all the important things we’re likely to take for granted. Still, when it hit that I’d now have to date again, I panicked. Dating meant nightclubs, heels, and black. It meant, ‘No, thank you. Really, I’m full.’ It meant matching bras and underwear. Clothes with ‘micro’ used to describe them. Because until you date again, people will hiccup lines about getting back on horses. So you invest in an Agent Provocateur whip and a subscription to an online dating service. . . .” -from Straight Up And Dirty

She had every girl’s dream: the perfect marriage to the perfect guy in the perfect apartment on the Upper East Side. Marriage fit Stephanie Klein like a glove . . . but unfortunately it fit her husband like a noose. And then, just like that, Klein found herself “divorced when you’re firm, fashionable, and let’s face it–fetching.”

Celebrated bloggist, photographer, and freelance writer Stephanie Tara Klein lets it all hang out in this juicy tell-all tracing her jump back into single life following her divorce. On the dating advice of her therapist, Klein attempts to keep “a pair and a spare” of men always on hand and has lots of bawdy fun along the way. But when the anniversary of the devastating breakup from her “wasband” forces her to revisit what happened, she finds herself wanting more than her therapist’s recommended gimmick to keep her emotionally safe.

Straight Up And Dirty demonstrates that the true measure of success isn’t what’s crossed off life’s to-do list. It’s having the grace and fortitude to move through change, curls intact and smiling.


“Nothing, it seems, is too private not to share with readers. And that is exactly how they like it… Ms. Klein’s legions of followers seem as absorbed in her escapades as if she were a television character, the Carrie Bradshaw of New York bloggers.” –The New York Times

“Fearless… Her adventures take her from Soho to the Hamptons–looking for love, with a cocktail in her hand.” –The Independent (London)

“Klein’s every move over the past two years has been validated and evaluated by an audience that has latched on to her life with an aspirational zeal.” –Elle Magazine

“50 Must Summer Reads” –Entertainment Weekly

“You’ll hoot with laughter, cringe and discover the addictive world of Klein.” –London Daily Record

A kooky, heartfelt and ultimately triumphant chronicle of young divorce and the importance of family, friends and a good shrink.” –Susan Shapiro, author of Lighting Up