Rating: 
Summary: An Easy and Important Read
Review: I had preordered this book after reading an excerpt in "O" (which for some reason, I am loathe to admit!) This is such an important book for so many reasons. It is an extremely well written, enjoyable journey into one woman's lifelong struggle with weight and her journey past the weight into a "normal" life. I appreciated her honesty regarding the struggles after weight loss as much as her honesty during weight loss. I'd recommend this not only to people who are embarking on, or who have completed, their weight loss journey... but to the friends, parents, physicians, and coworkers of fat people. Showing myself to be the lifelong dieter that I am... am I the only one who scoured the pages looking for "the magic bullet"? LOL. I have an idea to the diet having been to OA a few times in the past... but I know that it takes a lot more than a diet to overcome food addiction. Buy this book! It's one of those wonderfully well written books that are such a treat to read, yet end all to soon.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing, thoughtful, unvarnished
Review: I bought "Passing for Thin" after reading an excerpt from it in Oprah Winfrey's magazine. In a society when any woman's worth is based on what she looks like and how much she weighs, Frances' brutal honesty about herself, her relationship with food, and the fact that there was no fairytale happy ending (even after losing 177 pounds,) guaranteed a book I couldn't put down till I finished it. I realize that there are other reviewers here who have mentioned their disappointment that there was no food plan outlined in the book, and that there was little description of the year-long weight loss. Any reader wanting to travel the same path will get themselves to a local OA meeting. I'm sure the food plan is available there, as is support. I am grateful to the woman Frances mentions in the acknowledgements who encouraged her to write her book. She will help more people with her story -- warts and all -- than she will ever know.
Rating:
Summary: A memorable read
Review: This book reads like a long letter from a dear friend, full of wit and occasional asides. Its not a diet book, never set itslef up as such, but rather a diary of a personal journey of discovery of oneself. The courage it takes to keep on going, to see the incremental results, to keep focused, and then open yourself up to the world is monumental. However, the journey didn't stop with the final few pounds, yet it merely took on a whole new set of rules - the rules of dating and of men are priceless. This book is an enjoyable read for all, as everyone can relate to dealing with their own personal goblins. Well done - I await the sequel....................
Rating:
Summary: The best book EVER!
Review: I love this book! The characters are great! I loved Jennifer and Pam! Frances writes like an angel and has the only answer to weight loss and saninty within her pages. If you want to know how to "DO IT!" buy the book!
Rating:
Summary: Revealing in Ways I Did Not Expect
Review: As a person on the path to weight loss, "Passing For Thin" piqued my interest because it told the story of the journey within. This is not a diet book. Kuffel's story begins when she realizes that she is a food addict. She joins O.A. and loses over 150 lbs. She is no longer the Fat Girl, who is insulated by her fat, who is treated differently, who could coast through life insulated from pain. She reveals that she is a beautiful woman with great legs, desirable to men and striking to women. And it scares the heck out of her. She struggles with this new role and is unsure of who she is and how to live. Her journey is facsinating, revealing and at times down-right frightening. Kuffel is a wonderful writer with a gift of storytelling. I recommend this book to those on the weight loss journey because it shows there is more to it besides a thin body. You won't be "instantly" happy. You have to work hard on different fronts: body, mind and spirit. And Kuffel shows it can be done.
Rating:
Summary: Not a weight-loss how-to, more like a "what now?"
Review: As someone who has also lost a substantial amount of weight (around 50 pounds), I could relate to the feeling of alienation and weird fascination Frances describes feeling with her new body. The experience is like going through a second adolescence, and I have never read anything that describes it so well. Normally the "after" in a story like this is just deliriously, unconditionally happy, so nothing really prepares you for what it's like to learn to occupy a body that feels foreign to you. It was painful, however, for me to read the loathing that Frances seems to feel for herself at her heaviest, even though I am sure that it was very honest. This is not a "how-to" weight loss book so much as it is a "what now?" book. Anyone who is working on losing a large amount of weight should read it so they can be prepared for how they will feel, and how other people will feel, about the loss.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This is a beautifully written book about a life, and not just a memoir about weight loss. I related to this book on many levels and managed to read it in one day. Though I wish there was even more detail, I was grateful for what I did read. Any woman (and many men) will relate to the personal details of this life and the triumph over a personal demon. Kuffel is very revealing about her life and what she struggled to overcome.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible story...
Review: I read this novel in 2 days. Kuffel, at age 42, weighed 313 pounds. After joining a 12-step program, she lost 188 pounds. Kuffel begins by explaining what her life was like at 300+ pounds. I recognized so many of my own thoughts and feelings in what she said. As other reviewers have noted, once Kuffel joins the program, she seems to lose her weight over a few pages. There's barely anything of the struggle to get started and stay on her program. She seems to move right into being thin and adjusting to her new life. That's the only disappointment here for me. I would have liked to hear more about what she did, how she felt while she lost weight, etc. Despite it's shortcomings, I would recommend this to anyone. She has a wonderful sense of humor, and is a great storyteller.
Rating:
Summary: COMPELLING, FASCINATING
Review: A great memoir. An amazing personal accomplishment and literary achievement. A must read for women who struggle with obesity. If a forty-two year-old woman can lose almost 200 pounds without pills or surgery it gives hope to us all who struggle.
Just a couple quibbles: the family background is fascinating, especially the fact that the author is adopted... but her malevolent older brother, who is introduced early on, is given short shrift. What happened to him (much later in the book his death is dismissed in a sentence or two)? Were her brothers adopted as well? Same for her alcoholic friend Dennis... I wonder what happened to him. Also, the actual process of losing 188 pounds went awfully fast... seemed like it happened over two paragraphs. Would have liked to hear more about the year or so she was steadily shrinking. She goes from fat to thin in one page. Some judicious editing would have helped...but overall this is a great book. Could not put it down. Congratuations Frances, you are a wonderful inspiration for fat girls and writers alike.
Rating:
Summary: Leaving Planet Fat
Review: I read Frances Kuffel's "Passing for Thin" with mixed emotions. As a person who has (and continues to) struggle with weight, body issues and weight loss, I could readily identify with many of the topics Kuffel writes about.
For instance, she writes about needing to wear shorts underneath a denim dress to prevent chafing of her inner thighs in the summer...and of being refused entry to an amusement park ride - and the condescending remarks of pity offered by one woman afterwards as a sort of consolence...and of being hot and feeling in poor health all the time...so much of this a large reader can understand intimately.
I also think she does a very good job of showing, early in the book, how family dynamics affect her weight gain...her family (and one brother, in particular), come across as very insensitive to her during her childhood.
Yes, Frances Kuffel has spent much time on "Planet Fat" (her own descriptive phrase for what it's like living as a very fat person in this world) and she knows alot about the terrain, the rules and so forth.
She also does a fine job showing how difficult it is to make the transition from "Planet Fat" to a normal life in a "normal" body after her loss of about 150 pounds. (Not just in terms of the physical weight loss...but how, mentally, emotionall and spiritually she had to adapt to a new way of living and being in the world after her huge weight loss).
Despite all this, I did have some problems with the book. Kuffel's assessment of fat women (she devises her own system of grouping various "types" of fat women under such headings as the "Drab", the "Perfectionist", the "Orphan" and so on) leaves much to be desired in terms of actual respect (and insight, I felt) of women who live in a large body. Yes, I'm sure many women are just as Kuffel describes in her "types"...but surely there are also lots of fat women living lives of happiness too? Or is this too hard to imagine (much less give credence to) in the fat-phobic world we are All living in?
I don't mind when Kuffel details the elements of her own self-loathing, but when she extends this to All fat people, women in particular, I feel uncomfortable.
She was able to lose a huge amount of weight in a 12-step program (and more power to her) but such programs are not for everyone. I got a distinct feeling from her book that people who do not (or can not) lose weight in this way are somehow "in denial" about their weight problems (and addictions to food).
Reading this book, I got the impression that my only option, in terms of living a normal, sane life with food would be to do as Kuffel did: join a heavily spiritual program and do their "diet" (weighing and measuring of certain foods on a very restricted food plan), otherwise I'd be forever on "Planet Fat" too. (Kuffel refers to the "barbituate" effect of certain kinds of food and explains that she could never eat such food again if she were to maintain her newly thin body).
It is all well and good that Kuffel can do this. Many people either can not or do not want to. This does not mean we are "in denial" about our problems...or that we must forever hate ourselves as her book seems to suggest.
I applaud her strength of will (and higher power) that brought her to this state and I'm glad she's written her story. It is, in many ways, very inspiring.
I do feel she's left alot out, though. For instance, a more thorough, in-deph understanding of her self-loathing (aside from it mainly stemming from fat = bad) would have given her book a deeper perspective, I think.
Reading this book, I find that Kuffel (both when she was fat and now that she is thin) does little to question many entrenched attitudes towards fat people.
Maybe this book does not need to do that. For myself, it would have made her book much more insightful if she had done so.
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