Love, Finally: Untangling the Knot Between Mothers, Daughters, and Food

by Geneen Roth, Anne Lamott (Foreword)

An illuminating inquiry into the complicated relationship between what we eat, what our mothers taught us, and what we believe about ourselves—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Women Food and God

We see the world through our wounds, not as it really is. We see what we believe. It’s like seeing the entire world drenched in yellow when we’re wearing yellow-tinted glasses. Freedom comes when we take the glasses off.

For nearly four decades, Geneen Roth has been a trusted voice guiding women to give up dieting and end compulsive eating. Her books have sold millions of copies, and her workshops have months-long waiting lists. But only recently, when she was diagnosed with cancer, did she begin to understand how deeply entwined her feelings about her body are with her relationship to her mother. And, she realized, this is true for almost every the voice inside our heads, the voice we use to talk to ourselves, which criticizes the size of our thighs or the softness of our stomachs—these are all-too-often the voices of our mothers.

Roth was determined to untangle her sense of self from her mother’s judgment. Working with a blind eighty-six-year-old wisewoman, Roth learned to distinguish between her mother’s influence and her own truer inner knowing. Roth began to see that it was not what her mother said or did that made her unhappy, but what Roth believed about herself because of what her mother said or did. For the first time, Roth began to understand how peace does not depend on external circumstances—you do not need to wait for someone else to change—it relies only on what you yourself choose to believe.

Written in her signature style—funny, self-deprecating, soulful—Love, Finally is Roth’s story of discovering the deeper awareness that set her free. This transformative, healing book is an essential roadmap for anyone who wants to repair their relationships with food, their families, and themselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Parenting, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Food

256 pages, Hardcover

Published April 21, 2026

About the author

Geneen Roth's pioneering books were among the first to link compulsive eating and perpetual dieting with deeply personal and spiritual issues that go far beyond food, weight and body image. She believes that we eat the way we live, and that our relationship to food, money, love is an exact reflection of our deepest held beliefs about ourselves and the amount of joy, abundance, pain, scarcity, we believe we have (or are allowed) to have in our lives.

Rather than pushing away the "crazy" things we do, Geneen's work proceeds with the conviction that our actions and beliefs make exquisite sense, and that the way to transform our relationship with food is to be open, curious and kind with ourselves-instead of punishing, impatient and harsh. In the past thirty years, she has worked with hundreds of thousands of people using meditation, inquiry, and a set of seven eating guidelines that are the foundation of natural eating.

Geneen has appeared on many national television shows including: The Oprah Show, 20/20, The NBC Nightly News, The View and Good Morning America. Articles about Geneen and her work have appeared in numerous publications including: O: The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Time, Elle, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has written monthly columns in Good Housekeeping Magazine and Prevention Magazine. Geneen is the author of eight books, including The New York Times bestsellers When Food is Love and Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything. Her newest book, to be published in March 2011, is Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations about Food and Money.

Reviews

[Karen Axnick · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first comment is to acknowledge the author’s courage to lay bare her journey through incredible emotional abuse delivered by her mother and the resultant suffering she experienced based on the conclusions she drew about her self-worth. It was painful to read the interactions between mother and daughter as well as the author’s struggles with decades of body dysmorphia and food addiction.

I had read several of Roth’s books when she first started sharing her insights into diets and food issues, then moved on in my own search for answers. Coming back to her latest book allowed me to see her transformative journey through new eyes. I appreciated her humility in sharing that her own previous advice on intuitive eating is no longer relevant based on her current understanding of mind/body awareness.

I believe that anyone who has “yo-yo-ed” with weight issues and spent countless hours and significant money seeking for a permanent fix will find this book both heart-wrenching and inspiring in getting to the root cause of a dysfunctional relationship with food. The idea that our outer reality is a projection of our beliefs and thoughts is not new or unique. However, this book is an invitation to leave victimhood behind and to step into an ongoing practice to accept responsibility for our triggers and look within to recognize false understandings about “the way things are.” The result: freedom from looking to external sources for validation and love.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

[Mai H.]

Non-fiction November TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love, Finally" is part memoir, part self-improvement book. The author, Geneen Roth, struggled with compulsive (binge) eating and starvation dieting for many years. This was an illness largely influenced by the author's mother, who was abusive at times.

I like that this book did not shy away from the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship. Although Roth's mother was hardly what society would deem a "good" mother, and many of her behaviors were abhorrent, she loved her daughter. Roth writes with honesty and depth.

I think many women can relate to Roth's experiences, and I highly recommend this well-written book.

I received an ARC of this book complimentary from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

TW: disordered eating, binge eating, abuse by a parent, eating disorders

[Alicia Garcia-Webster · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to be honest, I knew I was going to love this book before I even read it. Because nobody gets me, like the author, Geneen Roth, gets me. It was 1982, I was 13, and I had just started the 8th grade. I read an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about a woman that had written a book called Feeding the Hungry Heart. I told my mother that the book sounded interesting to me. That Christmas, she bought me the paperback. At first I was totally offended, "Really, Mom? A book about compulsive overeating on Christmas? Gee, thanks." Her eyes welled up with tears, and she said, "But you told me that you wanted to read it! That's why I got it!" Oh. Right. I had forgotten. That Christmas day I read the entire book, And then I read it again, And again, A million times it seemed. I had never felt so seen, and yes, exposed. The food issues, the mom issues (My mother told me that I was an ugly baby and that she was so disappointed when I was born, and that if I had been a pretty baby, her husband, my father, would never have left her), and the feeling like I was never going to get this thing called life "right". At 13 I was ready to pack it all in because I felt so unworthy of breathing the same air that everyone else did. Fast forward to a few months ago to me seeing that Roth had written another book on the same issues, and I immediately requested the ARC. And lo and behold, I still felt seen with every word on every page. Love, Finally is about how when we experience abuse as a child, it often leads us to come to conclusions about ourselves, (I am unworthy, unlovable, selfish, too needy, etc), and how those conclusions color and inform future interactions in the same exact way, and from the same damaged perspective. The mother bond is especially fraught, because if you are rejected by your own mother, then where do you go from there? Every rejection from that point forward is just a reminder of that first rejection, and it's like pouring salt on that same wound. Geneen Roth is the absolute best at getting into all the uncomfortable places, and shining a light into the darkness of the beliefs that haunt us, and that prevent us from moving forward in our lives. I highly recommend this book to mothers, to daughters, to those struggling with food issues, to everyone. **I received this book for free from the publisher, but all opinions are my own.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read almost everything that Geneen Roth has written, I wondered if she’d have anything to say that I hadn’t already heard, and I was pleasantly surprised. There was plenty of new material here.

Geneen’s life work has been focused on ending compulsive overeating and teaching us what a bad idea diets are, and she traces her own dysfunctional relationship with food back to years of abuse from her mother, among other factors. Some of it is really hard to hear, and she’s spent most of her adulthood working through it. She’s been at the body weight she considers ideal for herself for quite awhile, but the emotional “feelings” work continues. Geneen spends quite a bit of time recounting her work with Coco, her blind therapist, whom I don’t remember her mentioning before. Reading and hearing Geneen’s words is like sitting down and having tea with her. So much of this book is worth sitting and meditating on the subjects, especially one’s own self-worth. If you’re new to Geneen and her books, I highly recommend her, especially if you’re drawn to the subject, whether it’s overeating or any other compulsive behavior.

Five stars! Recommended!

I received a copy of the digital ARC via the publisher, the author, and NetGalley. My review is voluntary.

[Chelsea Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description definitely makes it sound like more of a self-help book, but this is definitely a memoir. Which is fine, but not what I wanted. 🤷‍♀️

[Barbara Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

We don’t read memoir to learn about other people but to see ourselves in their stories. Geneen Roth’s memoir, "Love, Finally" takes that idea to a new level. We witness her having to grapple with her feelings for her mother, self-hatred, letting go of all the blame and shame she has identified with and written about for a lifetime, and in seeing her revelations and capacity to change, begin to realize our own.

Like so many mother-daughter relationships, Roth’s has been complicated from childhood, a love-hate affair from which she has spent her life seeking redemption, resolution, and happiness. I found this book compelling yet hard to read, frequently having to put it down for a bit to recalibrate my own emotions. I have not read Geneen’s other books so it was the first time for me reading about the physical and psychological abuse she suffered. And yet, she loves her mother, the very source of the abuse. Roth is unafraid to reveal her deepest emotions and trauma, and while she admits that she had long taken the victim stance, her writing is neither whiney nor apologetic. She is fully honest and owns her journey.

Roth has spent a lifetime searching for resolution of feelings of not being enough, being damaged and irrelevant through work with various spiritual teachers and therapists. She had made progress along the way but never quite healed. Her life's work has been a constant search for an explanation and solution to why she feels the way she feels and how can she change—and helping other women through their pain. "Love, Finally" revisits Roth's past, which readers of her previous books will likely be familiar with. The more recent part of Roth's story is about meeting Coco, a therapist who offers a way out but at the cost of no longer identifying as who she thought she was. Roth's time with Coco forces her to rethink everything she'd believed. We read about the sessions with Coco and her examination of Coco's process, which leads Roth to her own adaptation of it for her own teachings..

While I have never struggled with weight or food issues as Roth did nor suffered that level of abuse, "Love, Finally" made me think about awareness, the conclusions I've made about myself, and the answer to the age old questions of who am I and who do I let define my value. In our search for happiness, which Roth defines as the universal desire of humans, we often apply If/then or if/when statements, i.e., if I were thinner, if I eat/don't eat that chocolate cake, when I meet the perfect partner, then my life will be perfect, and I will be happy and loved. We often snooker (Roth's word) ourselves that being thinner, better, nicer—whatever -er you define for yourself—will bring happiness, but as Roth discovers and shares, that’s not true. Happiness is an inside job, and no matter how badly you were treated, your happiness is on you.

"Love, Finally" is a book that sticks with you and helps you pause and examine your reactions and feelings, whether you believe you need to do so or not.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

#netgalley #lovefinally

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once upon a time, a chubby little dark-haired Jewish girl growing up in New York City was physically and emotionally abused by her glamorous blonde mother. She was criticized and humiliated for being too fat, forced to diet, and made to feel bad about herself.

Years later that girl grew up and wrote a book called Feeding the Hungry Heart: The Experience of Compulsive Eating. It became a best-seller. Over the next forty years, she wrote more books on the same subject, appeared on television talk shows, and led workshops for other women.

Now, in her seventies, Geneen Roth has, once again, revisited the subject of women and compulsive overeating with a memoir that details her own life as it affects her relationship with food. She acknowledges that her earlier books were flawed because she failed to understand that "it's not what happened. It's what I believed about myself because of what happened" and "it takes a lifetime to return to where we've always been."

I read Feeding the Hungry Heart when it first came out and thought it was awesome. Then I realized that its recommendation to eat intuitively wasn't enough. Over the years I tried some of her other books and had the same problem. Love, Finally reiterates the original ideas that fat-shaming is bad, restrictive diets are bad and teaching little girls to abhore their own bodies is bad. Okay, fine, but saying that one can only solve the problem by looking within is just more of what Lama Surya Das calls "Newage." It might be true, but it isn't very helpful.

Aside from not being terribly useful, this book annoyed me because it kept repeating the same stories over and over. How many times does anyone need to read that Geneen Roth's mother hit her with a stick, dragged her by her hair, and made her take diet pills? How many times does anyone need to read about incredibly stupid diets?

In fairness, I have to admit that Geneen Roth writes well enough to keep me reading a book I hoped would offer some wisdom I could use, but by the end I realized I had been snookered (one of the author's favorite words) into spending time on common-sense ideas that I already knew.

I am pleased to learn that Geneen Roth has a happy marriage, a comfortable home, a satisfying career, and, apparently, a good relationship with her mother. I just don't need to read any more about any of it.

I would like to thank NetGalley and The Dial Press for giving me access to an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Elnèt Veldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ rounded up. For many people, but especially women, diet culture has shaped the way we think about food, and these ideas were often first pushed into our consciousness by our mothers. This book aims to untangle some of the ways these harmful lies have shaped the way we think about ourselves and the meaning we have attached to what our mothers taught us about food, weight and body image. I haven’t read any of Roth’s books in the past, but this one is written in short chapters that centered around a certain experience or moment in the author’s life. The author shares life-tested wisdom, as she is writing this from a later-in-life perspective, and she clearly has extensive experience on this topic. It’s helpful to hear from someone who has struggled with food and body image their entire life and feels like they have finally found healing. However, I felt there was a lack of evidence-based advice on how to make the changes she is suggesting. Much of the book is focused on her work she did with a guru who helped her realize it was her beliefs about herself that needed to change rather than blaming her mother. Roth presents this as the key to unlocking her patterns, however, felt a bit underdeveloped and oversimplified in the book. I needed a bit more supporting details! Overall, though, I found her writing style to be engaging and this book was an easy nonfiction read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessica Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new book from Geneen Roth is cause for celebration! Geneen has often written about her mother and rough childhood traumas and with this book, and learning from her new teacher Coco, she was able to reframe the stories she told herself and see her relationship and judgements through a new lens. I loved the wisdom she shared from Coco and can't wait to buy a physical copy of this book so I can mark it up. My favorite chapter was the one about her friendships and the patterns she discovered about how some of those relationships came to an end - and how they mirrored her relationship with her mother. Grateful to Geneen Roth for another wonderful book - and to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance read.

[Marian · Rating 2 out of 5]

The good news in this difficult story about the author's battle with food issues and memories of her mom's abusive parenting style is that "it ends well." However, reading this book feels like listening in on someone's life-long therapy sessions; the best section is on the very last page.

I first saw this author years ago on Oprah when she featured her bestseller, "Women, Food, and God."

This new book was written in her 70s; she shares her experience and wisdom about food issues and dieting and what she did to help herself and others. The author is reflective and funny but you may feel frustrated when the writing and thoughts jump all over the place. (just like our minds do)

I'd recommend reading the last page!

[Teale LaRosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advance digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This book is both a memoir of the author’s experience, but also a bit of self-help. As someone who has dealt with similar issues as the author for decades, I had to put the book down quite a bit because it was triggering to me personally. Despite that, I would say this is worth a read if you’ve ever struggled with compulsive eating and a traumatic childhood. It’s enlightening to hear from the author how her perspective has evolved throughout her life, and that she still works on peace and healing-it’s a life-long effort.

[Edie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have purchased previous books by this author so my expectations were high for this read. I thought there was a strong start with useful advice if you were a Daughter or Mother or both. As I read deeper, I couldn't get past the loathing for the author's own Mother. I realize that Geneen Roth suffered as a Child & that trauma has long remained.

I felt this book fell short. I am still a fan & it may be my life experiences influencing my review?

I thank NetGalley, the publisher & the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair & honest review.

[Hannah Ruegsegger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made it to 15% on the Net Galley reader. The formatting was either wrong or chapters ended abruptly. I didnt feel connected to the author; instead it seemed like lists were being made without any emotion or connection behind them.

[Whitney Warrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting; the book spent more time with the author's own body dismorphia than the mother-daughter relationships.

[Vanessa Dinah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm kinda feeling the same way I felt when I read Marsha Linehan's memoir. I thought I would like this more.

[Julia C · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Holly M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book overall - definitely one I will glean what's good and leave some of the rest but worth the read if you have any kind of mother issues (not just food).

[Brady Klapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me ugly cry on the plane

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - this book is familiar. Love, Finally by Geneen Roth writes feelings that are recognizable and painful. Roth writes her sentiments on womanhood, her relationships with food, and the intricacies of her relationships with her mother, to dive into pieces that (deep down) we all know are connected, but we may not know how or why. Shame we feel at rejection, the comfort we feel from food, the way we sneer at our own bodies and the way we separate ourselves from the bodies that champion us through life.

Roth writes, “I wanted thin thighs because I thought having them would fix what was broken. The self-loathing that was so deep I was ashamed to talk about it…the certainty that when it came down to it, when you scratched the glitter and the top five layers of sheen and brightness and trying to be a good person, you’d find a damaged, selfish waste of a human being.”

This is not an easy read, but it is a necessary one. Geneen and I grew up in different periods, and yet I found that the messaging/lies were still the same (through varying levels of severity) - your inner self is worthless, but you can try to perfect your outer shell. The relevance of this text cannot be understated.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC of this excellent read!

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As both a daughter and a mother, Love, Finally touched my heart. We all carry wounds and make choices, and Geneen Roth reminds us that it isn't our circumstances that define us -- it is our perspective. Healing can come from changing the lens we are looking through.

This is a book I know I'll return to, one that has earned a permanent space on my bookshelf. While I cannot personally relate to Roth's relationship with food and eating, I connected with her reflections on insecurity and self-doubt. Her words linger long after the last page.

This memoir is a reminder to slow down, notice what is around us, and remember that our parents were once children, too.

Thank you to Random House for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.