Kimberly Rae Miller - Beautiful Bodies

PRAISE FOR KIMBERLY RAE MILLERS BEAUTIFUL BODIES

Just as she did in Coming Clean , Kim writes about pain and struggle with utter honesty, humor, and grace. If you have ever felt at odds with your bodyas if no matter what you do, it simply isnt good enoughyou will see yourself in this wonderful book. If you have a partner or daughter who struggles with her body, this book is required reading.

Gabi Moskowitz, producer of Freeforms Young & Hungry and co-author of Hot Mess Kitchen

Weaving diet history with all-insecurities-bared personal narrative, Kimberly Rae Miller charts the cuckoo, dangerous, and heartbreaking efforts we endure to suppress our bodies into an imagined ideal. Funny, honest, and deeply empathic, this memoir of the public and private body chronicles the ultimate strugglenot to lose weight but to love the shape of our lives.

Sarah McColl, founding editor-in-chief of Yahoo Food

Kimberly Rae Millers Beautiful Bodies will make you laugh and cry with her every-woman story of a life spent chasing a beautiful body. Truthful, heartfelt, and delightfully funny, Miller walks her path toward redemption with admirable graceand reminds us its truly okay to be exactly as we are.

Katie Sise, author of Creative Girl, The Boyfriend App , and The Pretty App

PRAISE FOR KIMBERLY RAE MILLERS COMING CLEAN

WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER

AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS

AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH

Reality shows typically stay with hoarders only long enough to portray them as objects of pity or ridicule, but Millers story, Coming Clean , offers a uniquely nuanced look at her intelligent, loving, but broken father and the enduring effect his affliction has had on her and her long-suffering mother.

Entertainment Weekly

Harrowing. You root for [Kim], you root for [her parents], and at the end, you marvel at the capacity for human resilience.

People

[Kimberly Rae Miller] recounts a childhood in which it was impossible to shower in her house or cook in the kitchen, of being bitten by fleas and listening to rats rustle at night. The hoarding surrounds everything... This searing tale of the damage caused by the disease reflects Millers deep consideration of her experience; a deeply affecting, remarkably thoughtful, and well-reasoned book, yet the horror is always there. One can only admire Millers courage in coming clean.

Booklist , Starred Review

In Kimberly Rae Millers memoir, Coming Clean , the writer doesnt minimize the destruction the disorder causes families. But she uses her own experience to paint a much more compassionate and nuanced portrait of the illness than is usually shown on reality TV shows like Hoarders .

The Associated Press

As a child Miller realized her family wasnt like other peoples families with tidy, presentable homes; far from it. Miller never invited anyone home and had to adopt a decoy house to be dropped off at by friends... Stuff and unused purchases were piled so high that little room was left for the family even to eat or sleep or use the bathrooms.

Publishers Weekly

[An] honest, sensitive memoir... At the heart of Coming Clean lie two equally mysterious phenomena, one as timely as the other is timeless. Hoarding, the first, has only recently entered the popular lexicon while the second, familial love, spans the ages.

Washington Independent Review of Books

Miller renders her harrowing account without self-pity, and her empathy for her parents, as well as her refusal to treat the hoarding as a spectacle, allow space for redemptionboth theirs and her own.

Elle

Kimberly Rae Miller writes with insight about growing up the daughter of a hoarder in her familys moldy, flea-infested homeand eventually overcoming her anger and shame.

Parade

An engrossing, sympathetic exploration of living with hoarder parents.

Kirkus Reviews

Astonishingly honest and heartfelt... Kimberly Rae Millers new memoir comes clean on how the reality of compulsive hoarding is very different from what we see on TV.

The Daily Beast , Women in the World

Coming Clean is shocking and painful, but its also full of warmth and compassion... in some ways a tribute to Millers deeply imperfect parents.

PureWow

Millers wry retelling of her upbringing will encourage others who also did not emerge from the cookie cutter.

Library Journal

Kimberly Rae Miller is a brave and gifted writer, and her insightful examination of her troubled relationship with her parents will speak to anyone who has ever struggled to hide a family secret. Coming Clean is a standout coming-of-age memoir. A must read.

Kjerstin Gruys, author of Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

Turn off the reality TV and read Coming Clean , an engrossing, beautifully written memoir of growing up in a hoarding family that treats its subject with humanity and grace.

Doreen Orion, author of Queen of the Road

ALSO BY KIMBERLY RAE MILLER

Coming Clean

Text copyright 2017 Kimberly Rae Miller

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Names and minor identifying details of friends, family, and medical professionals have been changed to protect their privacy.

Published by Little A, New York

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Little A are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781503935174 (hardcover)

ISBN-10: 1503935175 (hardcover)

ISBN-13: 9781477829578 (paperback)

ISBN-10: 1477829571 (paperback)

Cover design by Rachel Adam Rogers

First edition

For Roy, my Superman

CONTENTS

PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE

The first time I walked into the New York Public Library, I took one look around and walked right back out. Its an intimidating place: an enormous marble Beaux Arts beast of a building, with mazes of stairwells and dark wood shelves filled with thousands of books youre not allowed to touch. And lions guard it. Colossal marble lions named Patience and Fortitude.

I will need patience and fortitude if I am going to find the answers I need. Answers to dull the constant, anxious stress of obsession.

What is the ideal human body?

Why dont we all have it? Why do we come in different shapes and sizes, and when and why did we start hating ourselves for it?

Simple stuff.

I wake up every morning and go to work with brilliant people who have done brilliant things. Theyve run magazines and published books, merged companies and built empires, and they trust me to edit diet books for celebrities and gurus who want nothing more than to impart their wisdom to the strangers who love them (or will as soon as they finish their book). Between books I write blogs without bylines for a variety of health experts and websites: articles about the opiate qualities of lettuce and how kale is miraculous in its superfoodiness (but might also destroy your thyroid) and which nondairy milk is the best nondairy milk for bikini season. Throughout the day I take pictures of the food Im eating so that I can write about it later on my own blog, where I try to undo some of the damage I may have caused between the hours of nine and six by reminding the small group of people who follow my digital life (and myself, mostly) that health isnt defined by a pant size.