Kid Rex

The Inspiring True Account of a Life Salvaged from Despair, Anorexia and Dark Days in New York City

By: Laura Moisin

Narrated by: Arielle DeLisle

Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

After knowing friends with anorexia and being baffled by their behavior, Laura Moisin suddenly found herself prone to the same disease - not eating at all and going weeks at a time consuming nothing but water and the occasional black coffee. Deceiving therapists by misleading them with symptoms of depression, her anorexia is prolonged, and her health deteriorates rapidly.

Recognizing that she has a serious disorder, she quickly finds a therapist working at her university and openly confesses that she’s an anorexic seeking treatment. Her therapist looks at her doubtfully and says, shockingly, "No, I don’t think you’re an anorexic.”

Already swirling in a state of confusion, the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center - an event the author witnessed first-hand from her apartment - only accelerate her path to further self-destruction.

Without preaching, this memoir offers a reassuring first-hand voice for the many who suffer silently, and provides strength for family and friends to help heal destructive behaviors.

©2008 Laura Moisin (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Poor little rich girl

While she uses plenty of big words, Laura Moisin writes like a little girl. She claims to have gained insight into herself, but this book doesn't prove that. Instead, she casts blame for her anorexia and mistreatment on anyone but herself. Renfrew, her therapists, even her childhood nursery school are painted as her antagonists, with one sided portrayals. I found her descriptions long winded and whining, revealing what a spoiled child she must be. This book falls into the greatest trap of memoir- staying inside the authors own head for so long the read/listener goes mad. She recounts with far too much detail the events of her childhood and lavish family vacations, and never incorporates a scrap of research or a narrative of anyone outside her family. Boring, predictable, annoying.

If you are an elitist...get this book

I tried to give this story a chance and listened to the very end.

I sadly could not relate. The narrator sounded self-involved and out of touch with the illness.

I also learned that unless you have money and support, you will not recover.

Had a hard time finishing this book

As a recovering anorexic I had a hard time with the validity of this book. I was also at Renfrew several times between 1999 and 2001 and I find her account of her time there really hard to believe. Just dumb little details like when she described the phones she said they were downstairs, but the phones were upstairs. She talked about the patients doing art therapy on the floor of the residence, but art therapy was done in a separate building in the art room. We were allowed to choose our own food in weekly menu planning. You weren’t given meds until after your appointment with the psychiatrist which happens within your first 3 days. Your entire day is planned out with group after group from breakfast to dinner with only small free time breaks. 99% of the staff were amazing and sooooo supportive (with a few bad eggs, but nothing like she described). She mentioned her roommates husband was lying with her in her bed the day Laura left, but visitors were not allowed in the rooms ever. There were definitely NOT vomit buckets in the bathroom, and if they suspected someone was purging, the bathroom door would be locked. I just have a hard time believing most of her account of her stay there, and because of that I had a hard time believing the rest of her story.

Whine-fest

Would you try another book from Laura Moisin and/or Arielle DeLisle?

No

Has Kid Rex turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, I have read many books relating to eating disorders. This was just a bad one.

How could the performance have been better?

Maybe the book would have been better if read. The narrator had a young whiny voice that made the litany of complaints the author was spewing all the more irritating.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Kid Rex?

Oh god, she MUST have known someone to have gotten this pushed through.

Any additional comments?

I am angry with this "author". Not for being anorexic, but for her attitude toward every single person that has tried to help her. She is very fortunate to have the opportunity to attend a wonderful college and have her own apartment. To see doctor after doctor (though she lied to them all and then got mad at them for their incompetence). She had her choice between Renfrew and Remuda Ranch but had nothing but petty, childish complaints to report. If you want to listen to a privilaged whiny girl complain about just about everything, this is the book for you. I also have a feeling that she grossly exagerated her condition. Ex. She stated that for years, she had nothing but one glass of water per day. This is not possible. She would have collapsed from dehydration at the very least. She desperately tries to show how smart she is by using unnecessarily large words and pretentious phrases. I know authors have the right to embelish but it has to be believeable. Don't waste your time.

Save yourself the time and money!

I have never heard an autobiography about such an obnoxious, spoiled brat. She is constantly complaining about everyone else around her, especially all the people who are trying to help her. Everything is just me, me, ME, how can they do this to MEEE! She spend 4 days at an eating disorder facility before she gives up and leaves, and then complains for the rest of the book about how they weren’t able to help her. She exaggerates so much about how sick she was and how little she ate (had it been true she’d be dead), it just doesn’t evoke any compassion, just frustration. But mostly because she loves her self-diagnosed illness so much, she uses the phrase «MY anorexia» five times on every page of the book. It becomes super annoying.

Possibly the Most Unrelatedable Author Ever

Where to begin, well I guess the first thing to explain is Laura Moisin. Laura is not like us mere mortals, she only speaks in witty intellectual quotes or puns. Whether its constantly quoting to Shakespeare, Einstein or Dante to name a few or complaining her friends can't use a new repertoire she is always proving her intellectual superiority to everyone around her. Her biggest pet peeve is people saying Venice is a dead city (she says when people judge Venice they also judge her as well). Unlike other selfish children all she asked her grandmother for was a leaf for her birthday. So as you can tell its hard for me to judge such a perfect person as she.

All right, joking aside this author is EXTREMELY hard to relate to. It almost became laughable towards the end on what kind of strange or ridiculous thing she would say next. She never says or does anything anything mean, silly, or stupid (unless you count her laughing at her mom misunderstanding the lyrics to "Jammin") like any normal flawed person would do. This really seems like a facade that she is trying to pass of as her actual persona, but I am not her so i cannot say for sure.

Secondly, she really only discusses her eating disorder about one third of the book. I understand that her backstory and personal dilemmas are supposed to add insight to her disorder, except it really doesn't. Aside from her talking about her perfectionism, everything else just seems like filler. The only really enjoyable part of the book as when she is in rehab as you finally get to hear about her struggle with anorexia. Which is why I wanted to read this book in the first place. I found the chapter on 9/11 also particularly frustrating, but this may just be a personal problem as I was born close to NYC. Why she feels the need to put in that someone took a picture of her in fashionable outfit after the towers collapsed is lost on me outside of pure vanity.

The only way I can recommend this book is as a "so bad its funny" kind of read. Though that was certainly not what I was looking for when I bought this. For most people I would say save your money and go read " Unbearable Lightness" by Portia De Rossi. She wrote a very compelling and clever book that was raw and full of relatable human experiences that everyone can relate to whether or not they have had an eating disorder or not.

Whiny Privileged Author - Couldn't Finish Book

As someone who has struggled with Anorexia for many years, I was hoping for a book with relatable content. I was completely disappointed by this book. It was the first Audible book I just could not finish listening to. The author is overly dramatic and does not seem to realize that her audience will have an impossible time relating to her story. Terrible. If you are looking for a relatable memoir from an individual with an ED, don't waste your money on this title.

My favorite Audible ED book so far is Loud in the House of Myself. Give that one a listen!!

Kid Brat: Uninspiring vapid delusional tirades....

Can I give this negative stars?

I've read many books from this genre. This one made me angry, and as I continued to listen I felt less and less empathetic for the author. I hate to be so negative, but the only good thing about this book was when I was finished with it. In hind-sight I should have cut my losses and saved myself the time.

It was only personally interesting in that what evoked as I continued through the chapters was anorexia schadenfreude. This author has so many character flaws and delusional selfish views in her pretentious little bubble of a polished world, I was honestly happy when she got kicked out of NYU, and then got hit by a car. Awful, right? Who thinks that way? I'm honestly a very nice person. I swear.

Blah, blah, NY, Manhattan, Self-contradiction, boo-hoo, blah.