Spent: Memoirs of a Shopping Addict

Growing up, Avis Cardella devoured her mother's fashion magazines; the images seemed to promise a glamorous existence. In real life, her relationship with clothing and shopping grows into an obsession. Cardella shops to define herself and, paradoxically, to lose herself and before long, it becomes a dangerous addiction. She forgoes food for Prada. Credit card debt blooms like the ever-increasing pile of unworn shoes and clothing in the back of her closet. Life presents some hard lessons about money, men and the price of trying to keep up appearances.

SPENT is Avis Cardella's timely, deeply personal and shockingly dramatic exploration of our cultural need to spend, and of what happens when someone is consumed by the desire to consume.