review: the man who couldn't eat by jon reiner

The Man Who Couldn’t Eat is all about the man who couldn’t eat. Jon Reiner proves himself to be more than a little self-obsessed in his memoir about life with Crohn’s disease. If it weren’t for my prior knowledge of Crohn’s disease, I’d think Reiner to be the first person ever diagnosed. Although his vivid prose regarding his agonizing pain and inability to eat brings the reader in, the wallowing becomes too much over the course of more than 300 pages. Just about every page is filled with descriptions of the food Reiner desires but must deny himself which is followed by far too much information about what eating such food would cause him to do on the toilet. He also rages about the healthcare system in America and his doctors’ inabilities to provide him with specifics; Reiner frequently seems ungrateful as a result. It wasn’t long before I was completely turned off.
2/5
Review copy provided by BookSparks PR.