The clever title and cover image of Half-Assed ($15.95) brought more than a delighted half-smirk to my face. After reading the tag line "Think the last 20 pounds are the hardest? Try the last 200," I realized that the author was standing in one of the pant legs of pants she used to fit into. Then I was amazed. I never thought a weightloss memoir would be a page turner, but this book certainly was. Fulda is funny and insightful, and the book is littered with gems like: "Being fat is like having a built-in asshole detector." She compares the process of building muscle by lifting weights, the destroy and rebuild cycles, to the many incarnations of Rome. And we all know that Rome wasn't built in a day.

Her path to losing weight is not a direct one. Muffins and hormones can create mundane detours, but she fights them off. What I enjoyed most about the book was Fulda's realization that she enjoyed cooking and exercising, that eating well and working out made her actually feel better. She experiments with star fruit and flax seeds. She starts running and takes up Pilates. She writes "Weight loss itself was a somewhat empty reward. All the cool things I could do because of my new fitness and health were the real prize."

At the beginning of Half-Assed, Fulda weight 372 pounds, and by the end she is down 200 pounds but still shy of her goal weight. Although the book is satisfyingly written, you do end up wanting more and because Fulda still writes her Half of Me blog, you can still keep up with her. Get her book here.

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