Enough Already begins as a self-help guide for those who want to get off the serial dieting treadmill and learn to love their imperfect selves. But it quickly turns into a remarkably empowering and deeply personal memoir as Bertinelli (Hot in Cleveland) bares family secrets, her battles with poor self-esteem and bad body image.
Enough Already covers Bertinelli's nearly two-year journey toward self-acceptance. During this period, she also deals with the Covid-19 quarantine and the news that the tongue and throat cancer her former husband, rocker Eddie Van Halen, has been dealing with for more than a decade has spread to his lungs and brain. Although the two divorced in 2007 (after 26 years together), they stayed close to co-raise their son. A large part of this memoir deals with grief and impending loss. "I was literally born into grief," writes Bertinelli, who was born a few months after her brother accidentally drank poison and died at 17 months old. "I didn't learn about it until I was in my early teens." With Van Halen's health declining, Bertinelli tries to break out of the crippling emotional restraint she was raised to exhibit. The chapter dealing with his eventual death is heartbreaking, nakedly honest and eloquent. "Grief is one of those things you have to wade into and expect to cry your way to shallower waters," she writes.
This soul-searching and heartrending memoir will empower people dealing with grief and those who need to live healthily while breaking the tyranny of the bathroom scale. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant