I am a big fan of Lena Dunham and her work, so when I found out that the screenwriter was coming out with a new memoir, “Famesick,” I immediately downloaded it on Audible.

The autobiography, which details Dunham’s rise to fame and struggle with numerous chronic illnesses like endometreosis, was one of the most honest memoirs I have ever read — which for me gives it an automatic gold star.

Dunham has had her fair share of controversies and criticism from the public. She could have very well written a memoir that explained it all away and painted her in a positive light. But she went a different direction. She wrote a self-reflective book that showed the life of someone thrust into stardom at a very young age — warts and all.

She talked candidly about her struggles with prescription drug addiction, her tumultuous and nuanced relationship with Jack Antonoff, the fallout from her last memoir, the body shaming she has faced and her hysterectomy.

She painted herself as a three-dimensional person while also extending that same kindness to the people around her — even the people that hurt her.

The prose was poignant and funny, which I expected. But it had what a lot of memoirs are often lacking: brutal honesty. Dunham set out to write a tell-all and she did just that.

Charlotte Shields-Rossi can be reached at shieldsrossic@duq.edu