Having graduated college with an eating disorder and a rapidly worsening drinking problem, our narrator is set adrift in the real world. After drunkenly sabotaging her plans to move to New York for a lucrative job in investment banking, she finds work both at a high-end Italian restaurant and the university hospital taking care of adolescent anorexia patients.

A coming-of-age story set against high-octane restaurant kitchens and high-acuity hospital rooms, Spaghetti for Starving Girls tackles alcoholism, anorexia and the service industry in this savory, sensuous, and occasionally sordid book.