Enough Already

June 1, 2022

From her sparkling introduction to the closing credits, actress Bertinelli lays down the highs and lows of her recent life and explains how she got to this point in time, where she seems to have found the inner peace that she has long sought. This listening experience is like a one-sided, intimate conversation between friends, with a few recipes sprinkled in for good measure. The use of stream of consciousness to tell her story results in passages jumping back and forth in time. While this may have worked well in a book, it results in duplication of phrases of anecdotes within her narrative--enough duplication that listeners may wonder if the repetition is a production error. Bertinelli infuses a wide range of emotions into her reading, as the perky actress swings from cheery and bright with occasional chuckles when talking about love and kindness to a dark, profound feeling of sadness when recalling the loss of her parents and beloved ex-husband to the surprising wonder and joy in the peace she has found within herself after turning 60. VERDICT Many will relate to Bertinelli's story and applaud her honesty.--Stephanie Bange

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 29, 2021
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.