Stranger Here: How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed with My Head - Softcover

Jen Larsen is a writer and editor living in Ogden, UT. In 2006, she underwent weight loss surgery and lost almost 200 pounds. Six years later she's still trying to figure out what that means in terms of health and body acceptance, but feels lucky to have experienced the full spectrum of weight and size issues on either end of the scale.

For two years Larsen was the featured blogger at Condé Nast's Elastic Waist. Her columns have also been syndicated on Yahoo!'s Shine Network for Women. She is a contributor to Big Fat Deal, a blog about weight in media and popular culture, and her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Word Riot, and Emprise Review, and South Loop Review, among other publications. She is obsessed with tattoos as a way to transform your body, and has an MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco.

Honest, brave and sparklingly funny, Larsen’s memoir reminds us that one size doesn’t and shouldn’t fit all.”
People Magazine

"For all the noise our culture makes about fat and thin and health and perfect bodies, Jen Larsen's voice rises above the clamor, disarming and funny but unflinching, too. Combining stark honesty with generosity of spirit, this story of loss and recovery is like no other."
Wendy McClure, columnist for BUST Magazine and author of The Wilder Life

"An arresting memoir about the author's experience with weight loss surgery.

Larsen initially lied to her mother about the nature of her surgery and didn’t tell her the truth until well after the procedure. She admits that her librarian co workers 'probably knew more than I did' about the risks and potential complications, and she spread the first payment across three credit cards. When a doctor reprimanded her for gaining, rather than losing, weight before the surgery date, Larsen asked, 'If I don't lose the weight, can you still operate?' She smoked and drank heavily. After her painful recovery, she 'ate whatever I could fit inside me, and suffered for it, and lost weight anyway.' In the hands of a lesser writer, all of these facts could lead readers to feel judgment or disgust. Instead, Larsen's honesty and insight make for a searing account of precisely what it feels like to be fat and to have complicated relationships with food, family and friends. We understand exactly why one would look to surgery as a solution to not only excess weight, but also fear, loneliness and unhappiness. Larsen eventually lost the weight, and she also moved on from her dead end job and her bad relationship. But though her life is measurably better, she still reels from the shock that self acceptance did not come automatically: 'You lose weight without having to develop self awareness, self control, a sense of self. In fact, you go ahead and you lose your sense of self.'

Raw vulnerability and rigorous emotional honesty make this weight loss memoir compelling and memorable." Kirkus Reviews