Release Date: August 26, 2025
Size: 6x9
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-206-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-57869-207-1 Click Here to Purchase eBook
Library of Congress Control Number: 2025909649
Booksellers and Libraries: Order Info Here or at Ingram.

SYNOPSIS

Up to one in ten will die from anorexia. But Nancy Levine and her daughter Rachel didn’t know this when the disease slowly—then all too quickly—took root.

While studying abroad, Rachel begins a new passion: running along the golden beaches of the coastal Australian town Surfer’s Paradise. Each day she feels stronger and can run further. She also gives up the typical college junk food diet of sweets, pizza, and french fries. Tanned and muscular, her family thinks she looks healthy and fabulous. They don’t notice that running and her “healthy diet” are slowly controlling her life. 

Light is a story of obsession and OCD, family history and stigma, and Rachel’s battle with life-threatening anorexia. Once called the “sickest of the sick,” Rachel fought to recover, with her mother and family by her side. Narrated by Nancy with excerpts and journal entries from Rachel before, during, and after treatment, this memoir explores how the deadly inner voice of an eating disorder is heard, treated, and finally silenced. Blending tough scenes with humorous ones, this unique and brave book celebrates hope and lasting recovery.

Praise

“Levine’s memoir is a highly personal and vivid account of the period leading up to and including the 10 months Rachel spent in the center. It is written with love and a bold honesty about generational family history and dynamics…emotionally charged, but tender and highly informative.”

—Kirkus Reviews

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“In this beautifully written, insightful, and courageous book, Nancy Levine has given us a story of her family's struggle with anorexia. As a memoir, it's an engaging read, a window into the lives of interesting people as they cope with a dangerous illness. But more than that, this is an important book. Anyone dealing with anorexia, as a patient, family member, or helper, will find hope and inspiration in its pages. As a therapist working with couples and families, I highly recommend it. Five stars!”  

—Dr. Bruce Chalmer, author of Betrayal and Forgiveness: How to Navigate the Turmoil and Learn to Trust Again

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“Nancy Levine’s memoir, Light, tells the story of a family in a battle with their daughter’s anorexia. Including passages written by her daughter, Rachel Levine Spates, this book is ultimately about the way our choices can influence our children. It’s a story of abiding love, told in the most direct terms and with the desire to know the intricate ties that bind even when illness threatens to sever them. I rooted for this family, and I know you will, too. This is a beautifully written book, a book of sacrifice and survival and one that will touch you in the most important ways.”

—Lee Martin, author of the The Bright Forever, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction

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“Heartache, to promise, to triumph, to joy! This book is a must-read for everyone who knows anyone struggling with an eating disorder, and for everyone who is struggling with an eating disorder themselves. The story is masterfully told by Nancy Levine with the deep love of a mom who watched her daughter face the agony and devastation of an eating disorder, recover with the support and love of her family and others, and blossom into a beautiful woman with a wonderful family of her own. When someone we love suffers from an eating disorder it can become hard to hold on to hope. This heartfelt, warm and honest book brings encouragement and inspiration that recovery is possible.”

—Dr. Lorraine Platka-Bird, registered dietitian, certified eating disorder specialist, and certified diabetes educator

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“Light tells a powerful story of a family in turmoil as a young woman battles an eating disorder and her parents desperately try to help her heal. This memoir provides the perspective of a loving parent forced to watch her daughter suffer and feeling powerless to help her, and follows the plight of well-meaning parents coming to terms with their own demons to save their adult child. Light is likely to be a resource for parents and families doing their best to support a loved one's struggle with an eating disorder.”

-Erika Nichols-Frazer, author, Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness

Reviews & In the News

The Times Argus, August 15, 2025: Community News, Rootstock Publishing

VermontBiz, August 12, 2025: New book Light illuminates anorexia recovery

Kirkus Reviews, July 14, 2025: Disturbing, frightening, and emotionally charged, but tender and highly informative.

Meet the Authors