Bitter Ice: A Memoir of Love, Food, and Obsession

Rating:
Summary: I Admired the Author
Review: Although I read more than a few reviews of this book that chided Barbara Lawrence for being a whinning, affluent woman who simply contributed to her husbands problems, I disagree. Rather, I found Ms. Lawrence's memoir to be a courageous and honest account of her struggles living with an eating disordered person, while also battling her own demons. Rarely do we get a look at things from the perspective of anyone but the person with the disorder. But Ms. Lawrence had her own story to tell, and I thnk she did a fine job of telling it. Having an eating disorder myself, I was heartened by Ms. Lawrence's ability to lay bear her own complicity in the dysfunction of her marriage in a compassionate and forthright way. I was somewhat surprised that she wasn't more proactive when it came to helping Tom seek treatment, but only a little. I don't think it was so much a function of naivete, as it was denial (of how bad things were, of how misguided her decision was to marry Tom in the first place, of the extent to which fear and a sense of unworthiness defined her existence) that motivated her? Although my own socio-economic background could not be more different from the author's I did not find this a barrier to sympathy or understanding. Instead, the strength of the book to me was in her ability to allow us to fully enter her complex inner life, and the struggle for wholeness I believe she is finally waging with success. As for the person who blithely commented that he/she was not surprised that Tom 'got better' when he found someone other than Barbara to be with, don't kid yourself people, eating disorders are about the sufferers pathology. Which is to say, no one can either make us sick or well. That awesome task remains our own.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to understand
Review: Although it was a fascinating story, this was a hard book to read. It was hard to be sympathetic to the characters -- Barbara because of her incessent whinning about how tough her life with a wealthy family was and how unfair that she didn't have a trust fund like her siblings, and him because he had absolutely no redeeming qualities. There is nothings likable about Tom, and the reader isn't cheering for his recovery. He is obviously mentally ill and utterly self-involved from the very beginning, and why she doesn't recognize this is puzzling. So is the fact that she stays with this lunatic for *25 years*. She doesn't love him, she doesn't need him, he's ruining her life... but still she stays. She never confronts the fact that she's co-dependant, and it leaves with reader with the idea that she stuck around because living with a sick, twisted man made for fascinating material. I'm not convinced that his problem was anorexia -- he had obvious mental and social problems before he started starving himself, and I felt that the anorexia was simply another syndrome of whatever was wrong with him. That a bright, successful, wealthy woman would stay with someone like him and tolerate his gross, controlling behavior left me shaking my head. Why Barbara, why?

Rating:
Summary: Who's the story about?
Review: I was a little unhappy with this book. Not because the author isn't a decent writer, but because from the description of the book I thought this book was about the life of a male anorexic. The book, however, is mostly about the authors life (wife of the anorexic), not her husband. I did not buy this book to read about the life of a wife of an anorexic, but to take a rare look into the life of a male anorexic. This book jsut didn't provide that. It is still, over all, a good book, which is why I still gave it 3 stars.