Lesbian Crush Diaries

I was excited about reading this 1989 diary by a teenager experiencing an eating disorder (compulsive eating) as it is so close to my own book (1989 diary by an unstable teenager experiencing bulimia). Rae Earl is hilarious. I laughed out loud so many times (just follow her on Twitter too: @RaeEarl. She is stellar). Rae is seventeen, fat, recovering from a nervous breakdown, and aching to get laid. The lads can't see past the fat ... so she keeps eating. That's it, in a nutshell. And it's wonderfully expressed, interwoven with thrilling period references (music, types of food, having to ring her friend from a phone box down the road) and episodes of "mutual antipathy" between Rae and her loopy mother. This book is a good reminder about how much people often suffer psychologically and the pains they take to cover it from view. I enjoyed reading Rae's diary too with the foresight I had gained from following her on Twitter and from having read a number of articles about her current life. I was soothed by the knowledge that she did turn her life around and pull off those teenage dreams of becoming a presenter and a writer and of ... *getting laid.* Good for her.