Gwyneth Paltrow Has Written the Bible of Laughable Hollywood Neuroticism

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It's hard to remember a time when Gwyneth Paltrow was not the object of parody. It existed once, to be sure, but those were simpler times, without any Goop. And now it seems that Paltrow might have just gone over the edge. The New York Post excoriated the Oscar-winner's new book It's All Good this morning, begging the question: Can Gwyneth out-Gwyneth herself? 

The premise of the book finds Paltrow—who had recently felt not-so-good—pursuing an "elimination diet" at the behest of her doctor with "no coffee, no alcohol, no dairy, no eggs, no sugar, no shellfish, no deep-water fish, no wheat, no meat, no soy, nothing processed at all!" The Post's Hailey Eber explains that Paltrow thought she was suffering a stroke, but was actually diagnosed with a migraine and a panic attack. According to the Amazon description, Paltrow was "concerned that so many restrictions would make mealtime boring, so, together with Julia Turshen, she compiled a collection of 185 delicious, easy recipes that followed her doctor's guidelines." 

The problem is all this healthy eating doesn't even sound that healthy, according to Eber: 

"The book reads like the manifesto to some sort of creepy healthy-girl sorority with members who use beet juice rather than permanent marker to circle the 'problem areas' on each other’s bodies." 

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Paltrow's last cookbook, My Father's Daughter, wasn't totally lambasted by the press. Sam Sifton wrote that it's a "beginner's book" but "it isn't bad for that, if you can keep the snark about a stick-thin celebrity who used to be a vegan writing a book on what she learned about cooking from her wealthy television-producer father at bay (which is, let me tell you, difficult)." NPR said: "Gwyneth Paltrow may be an unlikely domestic goddess, but her cookbook mostly delivers on the promise of its subtitle: delicious, easy recipes celebrating family and togetherness." 

However, It's All Good seems to take laughable Hollywood neuroticism about eating to the next level. At one point The Post's Eber even writes that she worries about Paltrow's children.

With Goop still going strong—actually, the latest post about one-pan meals seems relatively sane compared to Lindy West's evaluation of the empire back in December—Paltrow has settled in comfortably to her position as object of ridicule (who sometimes raps to disastrous results), but might this book be the tipping point or at least give fire to the somewhat quiet genre of Paltrow-parody? And just before Iron Man 3 comes out...

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.