Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today

In a series of brutally frank essays, Bertinelli (Losing It), host of the Food Network show Valerie’s Home Cooking, looks back on the emotional struggles and triumphs of her life. Sharing her “efforts to, at sixty-one years old, set aside the land mines of denial, negativity, and self-hate” that she cultivated during her decades-long acting career, she contends with her weight gain after losing 50 pounds and posing on the cover of People Magazine in a bikini (“I was happy that day although I almost fainted on the set”); conveys her deep grief around the death of her ex-husband Eddie Van Halen, who died from cancer in October 2020; and revels in her joy at winning two Emmy Awards for her TV show. She doesn’t mince words when speaking of her body image issues, the challenges she faced as an actor (“the process made me anxious”), or how she overcame her shortcomings and learned to accept her appearance (“whether I was a size two, an eight, or a twelve, I was still me”). As Bertinelli works through her pain, she offers rewards in the form of sumptuous recipes—including, notably, her spinach-crab dip, her mother’s unbeatable lasagna, and Sicilian Chocolate Love Cake. By turns raw and inspiring, this contains a little bit of wisdom for everyone. (Jan.)