American Bulk Essays on Excess

Emily Mester

eBook - 2024

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2024 Raised with hoarding and compulsive shopping, Emily Mester is caught in between. What happens when consumption begins to consume you back? In a series of deeply personal essays, Mester explores how the things we buy, eat, amass, and discard become an intimate part of our lives. We guiltily watch Amazon boxes pile up on the porch, wade through endless reviews to find the perfect product, and crave the comforting indulgence of a chain restaurant. With humor and sharp intellect, Mester reflects on the joys and anxieties of Costco trips, how a seasonal stint at Ulta Beauty taught her the insidious art of the sale, and what it means to get "mall sad." In a nuanced examination of diet culture and fatn...ess, Mester recounts her teenage summer at fat camp and the unexpected liberation she finds there. Finally, she ventures to Storm Lake, Iowa, to reckon with her grandmother's abandoned hoard, excavating the dysfunction... more