Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

Most people remember this book as being made famous when Victoria Beckham (the skinny bitch personified) was seen carrying it around.

To me this doesn't seem the greatest recommendation for a book so I sort of avoided it like the plague for awhile, and all the people who want to look like Victoria Beckham went and started reading it.
Then my sister (god she gets mentioned a lot in this blog, she's pretty cool though) got it for $3 at a second hand bookstore and again while looking for books to read on the bus she recommended it to me. So prepared to suddenly want to become a vegan after reading it, I plunged straight in. To me at face value it seems to be an animal rights book disguised as a diet book. It is written pretty harshly, but what else would you expect from a book entitled Skinny Bitch? The book harshly attacks both the meat and dairy industries in the USA, tells you pretty much everything will cause something that will likely result in your untimely death, and according to the book will make you grossly overweight and no one will want to be your friend or significant other.
I am a vegetarian so I knew all about the meat industry anyway, but it still disgusted me. I had a boyfriend who used to work in a Meat Works so he used to describe pretty awful things to me while I loudly protested so this was nothing new, just made me all the more glad that I escaped eating animal flesh when I did. The dairy industry part didn't really ring true to me, especially because New Zealand's main industry is the dairy industry, and it is actually pretty humane compared to the industries overseas. This book would have you think that all kinds of milk are just fat, will make you fat and you don't want to be fat for aforementioned reasons. In a way the book seems to use the scientific studies it wants, and ditches the ones it doesn't. Soy milk is described as an apt food replacement all the way through, when several studies have proven it causes cancer if used as a complete replacement.
Also as someone who knows a lot of this stuff already, it read to me like a book I didn't need to read because I knew most of it anyway.
The tone confused me a bit as well, the beginning was all telling you that unless you are vegan and skinny, you are a lazy bitch, a terrible person and everyone will hate you. Then the latter part of the book is like but love yourself. I wonder if they think it is okay to love yourself if you are overweight, in fact I'm convinced there are vegans who are overweight too, either just because they are built that way or because a lot of vegan substitute food is in fact laden with the same preservatives that these girls shun. The list of foods near the end would be great, except that it's all American so useless for anyone in a different country.
Oh and the bit on fasting, don't even get me started on that. Fasting (either liquid only diets or the only drink water one) should only be done under medical supervision, it's very dangerous; bad for your heart, makes you dizzy and prone to collapsing, you lose energy. I'm sure it's a great way to detox but there are easier less dangerous ways. Oh and the suggestion to brush your teeth so you won't want to eat, that reads like something an anorexic would write. Was not impressed.
I think this book could serve as an interesting information source about the meat industry and the cruelties animals go through, but only if you are not educated in this subject already.
Maybe I am a bit scathing of this book, probably because I'm suffering from an eating disorder until this day and a lot of the suggestions in this book reminded me of all the stuff I do myself, which contributes to my disorder...so yeah.