The daughter of an alcoholic but brilliant Harvard-professor father and an emotionally reclusive mother, the author grew up starved for affection; instead, as the cliché goes, she found her solace in sweets. It wasn't until she staged an intervention for her father that she also found the strength to battle her own addiction. She joined OA, took control over food (serious control — she once brought a packed meal to a wedding), and learned to acknowledge her own emotional needs. The story should be an inspiring one, and indeed Holy Hunger: A Memoir of Desire has a happy ending: The author eats fairly normally, gets married, and reconciles with her parents. But Margaret Bullitt-Jonas tells her story without any drama. What works at 12-step meetings doesn't always work on the page. C+
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