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Through Thick and Thin
Through Thick and Thin
Jan 30, 2025 11:20 AM

Author:Gok Wan

Through Thick and Thin

With his infectious energy and charisma, Gok Wan has an incredible gift of making women feel more confident within themselves - but it's not until you read his own inspirational story that you find out where he got that gift from.

Gok grew up on a Leicester housing estate, with a loving family who ran a Chinese restaurant. For his parents, food meant love - and Gok was so well loved that by the time he was a teenager he weighed 21 stone. Being Asian and gay as well, Gok felt lonely and out of place. He was an easy target for bullies and suffered terribly at their hands.

In a moment of inspiration, he decided to reinvent himself with his first style makeover and a larger-than-life personality to go with it. But his next move was to lose a devastating ten stone in nine months. In Through Thick and Thin, for the first time, Gok reveals all about that life changing period.

The lessons Gok learnt during this time helped him bounce back to become a stylist to the stars, every woman's best friend and a national treasure. In this intimate memoir Gok tells his full story in his own words. Whether he's recounting the horrors of childhood bullying or riotous anecdotes about his loving family, behind the scenes in the fashion world or TV shows, Gok's voice jumps off the page with all the honesty, wit and warmth we've come to know and love him for.

Reviews

As funny as it is moving, Gok's inspirational story is a fab read *****

—— Closer

It's the autobiography we've all been waiting for - the incredible story of how a 20st Chinese kid from a housing estate grew up to become a fashion guru ... this intimate memoir is full of insights about bullying, fashion and celebrity. Witty, honest and inspirational! *****

—— Woman's Own

A revealing and unglitzy autobiography, about being a podgy, spotty teenager in Leicester, feeling out of place and out of luck and without much hope for a better future ... honest and moving

—— Susan Hill , Spectator

Told with the wit and warmth we know and love him for

—— Best

Immensely readable, touching and at times funny

—— Sunday Express

You've got to read it ... wonderful

—— Jane McDonald , Loose Women

An honest book, full of graphic and therefore gripping detail ... it's also a teensy wheensy bit inspiring

—— City AM

After 20 minutes, I cannot put it down

—— John Harris , Guardian

Wan's book is a page-turner, told entirely in his candid, personable voice

—— Liverpool Daily Post

A confident, accessible memoir, a must-have for Gok fans

—— Attitude

A story of triumph over adversity

—— Lorraine Kelly

Wan has an extraordinary messianic appeal for many women. Though his fashion shows draw big ratings, it was his autobiographical film that got the largest audience. Writing the book himself, and reportedly with a 'devastating eye for detail' this might just turn out to be more substantial than the average celebrity autobiography.

—— Bookseller

Unflinchingly honest about the trials and traumas of his life, and his slow rise to fame, this is a perfect gift for any of the many women who would love Gok to take them shopping!

—— thebookbag.co.uk

Compassionate and funny and brave. The book is a masterclass in life writing, and a lesson in how to live a life outside the narratives that would contain us. CJ is a master story weaver. I was left wanting more, in the best way possible

—— Charlie Gilmour, author of Featherhood

In The Crane Wife, Hauser undertakes a new way for her to tell stories from her life, playing with history and personal history, exploring the possible hidden truths in her family's past and her own. The result is like interconnected short stories but about her life, the person she is and was, maybe even the person she never knew herself to be. Funny, exciting, vulnerable - truly visionary.

—— Alexander Chee, author of QUEEN OF THE NIGHT and HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL

The Crane Wife more than delivers on the immense promise of the viral essay that served as its source. My goodness is it funny, but also so devastatingly honest and bracing. Reading it is like taking a long road trip with your wisest, sharpest friend and talking the entire way.

—— R. Eric Thomas, bestselling author of Here For It

The Crane Wife is brilliant and beautiful - the vulnerability of her viral essay is expanded to include immense humour, pondering and further misadventures of the heart. An absolute must-read. I will be gifting this book all year long

—— Frances Cha, internationally bestselling author of IF I HAD YOUR FACE

In this perceptive and probing work, Hauser brilliantly parses the myths that shaped her understanding of love. . . Sparkling. . . A thrillingly original deconstruction of desire and its many configurations

—— Publishers Weekly, starred review

Hauser is a delightful and agile writer, capable of speaking in multiple registers, but what all of her essays have in common is honesty, wisdom, a certain loopiness-she's an old soul with a fresh perspective and an energetic, wandering mind. The result is an imaginative and beautiful memoir, one that'll be passed through the secret sisterhood of crane wives for years.

—— Jennifer Senior

Readers looking for something a little different in a memoir will not be disappointed. The strongest essays exemplify Hauser's keen awareness about life so far: things don't always work out as planned, love is complicated, and trusting your gut is, sometimes, the best option.

—— Library Journal

Perceptive and witty

—— Shelf Awareness

Intimate, witty and beautifully crafted

—— Elle

"I am a kind of breakup pro," Hauser writes late in this lively, thoughtful, and often funny set of personal essays-at a point when the reader has learned much about how unlucky in love she's been. . . Hauser makes a welcome effort to talk about both love and culture in unconventional ways. . . A smart, inviting, and candid clutch of self-assessments

—— Kirkus Reviews

A staccato, funny, barbed, metaphor-laced, and thought-provoking memoir-in-essays. . . No matter her focus, Hauser's deductions about human nature are always arresting, delving, fresh, and exhilarating

—— Booklist

While it's always difficult to summarize an essay collection, what holds The Crane Wife together is Hauser's unpacking of emotional truths: who do we love, and why, and what happens when they're gone? When we're alone? When we forget what it was like to love them?

—— LitHub

This memoir may do for you what Blue has done for her Key, putting your unexpressed feelings into beautiful words and helping you feel connected to the world.

—— Crack

Key charts women's lives with a savage delicacy.

—— Olivia Laing

'A writer of a rare and strange magic.'

—— Sarah Perry

'I love Amy Key.'

—— Lauren Laverne

'A beautiful read.'

—— Amy Liptrot

'If you read one thing this weekend make it Amy Key's astonishing essay on Joni Mitchell's Blue, love and love's absence.'

—— Sophie Mackintosh
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