Hungry

Now available in paperback, Hungry is an uplifting memoir with a universal message about body image, beauty, and self-confidence, and an inspiring, cautionary tale for women of all ages.

At fourteen, I was a regular junior high school student in Clinton, Mississippi, when a modeling scout told me: You could be a supermodel...but you'll have to lose a little weight.

For glamour, fame, and escape, I lost seventy pounds.

This is a photo of me at sixteen, when I signed a big modeling contract, moved to New York City, and started traveling around the world.

It is also when I developed a ferocious case of anorexia and exercise bulimia.

Until I decided enough was enough—I wanted to live.

And so I ate. And ate.

Offering a behind-the-scenes peek into the modeling industry, as well as a trenchant look at our weight-obsessed culture, Hungry is an inspiring and cautionary tale that will resonate with anyone who has battled society’s small-minded definitions of beauty.

This is me now, the leading plus-size model in America.

Crystal Renn is the leading plus-size model in America. At twenty-two years of age, she has appeared in four international editions of Vogue; starred in a Dolce & Gabbana ad campaign; served as the final model in Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Spring pret-a-porter show in a diaphanous, flower-strewn gown that Gaultier designed specifically for her curvaceous figure; was the cover girl on an international edition of Harper's Bazaar; appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, The View and The Oprah Winfrey Show; and has been photographed by Steven Meisel, Ellen von Unwerth, Steven Meisel, Ruven Afanador and Patrick Demarchelier. Renn lives in Brooklyn.

Marjorie Ingall, who goes by “Snarly” on SorryWatch.com, is the author of Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children and The Field Guide to North American Males, and is the coauthor of Hungry, with plus-size model Crystal Renn. A former columnist for Tablet magazine and the Forward, she is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review and has also written for New York magazine, Town & Country, Ms., Glamour, Self, Elle, and Sassy (yes, that one). She lives in New York City.