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Summary: encaptures eating disorders to a tee.
Review: I see this book as a completion, a that's it-I'm not putting up with you any more, Finito!, of my very own trip with Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa. To this day it has been a total of six-years that I have been up against these two disorders. I was "lucky" enough to experience a Tramatic Brain Injury in March '98, and forgot a lot of my sexual abuse. Yet it, the pain & fright, is becoming very present in my life now. As I read this book, I found it to nurture the insanity in, what I say is; me. Mayra has handed over to me Power to remember and kill off this inabiling disabilty. It's Complete, now. Also note, I am 22-years-old(not 12).
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Summary: Remarkable!!
Review: This book is extraordinary!! I advise any girl who has an eating disorder or considering having one to read this book. I found this book to be frank and real. Because this book is narrative, Marya takes us through this outrageous journey as if we're right there with her. I related to her so much. This compelling story must be read by any young woman, eating disorder or not. This book is as modern as it is captivating.
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Summary: wasted
Review: What a book. This book is excellent in many ways. It explains the eating disorder but expresses Marya's feelings and shows it in from a very real point of view. It isn't a typical tale of eating disorders that follows the "normal" chronological order of the disease. She (marya) is a very real person that you will find yourself relating to. The book makes you look at the world through her frightened eyes. A very raw and real story. Two big thumbs up!!
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Summary: Helpful to read about a peer in the same struggle
Review: As a person struggling with an eating disorder, I found Hornbacher's account of her own struggle to be helpful in many ways. It's comforting to know that the way I feel inside about my body is not completely abstract and selfish and crazy; to hear that another person is feeling those same feelings is like meeting that one person that understands you. Other readers have commented that Hornbacher "hasn't recovered" and "doesn't have a genuine desire to leave anoxeria behind." This doesn't truly bother me. Having an eating disorder is like being an alcoholic. It never truly goes away. That's what Hornbacher's book gets across: even when her body, eating, and weight are fairly normal, the feelings of hatred toward oneself can still loom on the forefront of ones thoughts.
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Summary: Best book on eating disorders
Review: I've read a lot of books on eating disorders this has been the best book!! It explains in detail her like from 9 years old and how slowly her strange behaviors developed into anerexia and bulimia.. She also talks about her struggle and just like everyone else she attempted to stop many different times at one point she weighs 70 pounds. Anyone who is anoretic or bulimic or knows someone needs to read this book.
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Summary: A tyraid against/tribute to anorexia and bulimia
Review: Hornbacher has a great deal of insight into the causes of eating disorders. The beginning of her book is especially powerful, as she comments on the futility of a condition that "starts off as a mockery of society's standards and ends up mocking no one more than you". At times, she took my breath away with the accuracy of her succinct statements about anorexia. Unfortunately, this book does much more than discuss the underlying issues of eating disorders. In painstaking, almost obsessive detail, Hornbacher describes her horrible battle with anorexia and bulimia. She is extreme in everything she does. When bulimic, she regurgitates such a large volume of food that it plugs her family's sewer system. When anorexic, she claims that she reached a shocking low of 52 pounds. The attention that Hornbacher devotes to reporting the gruesome details of her disease seems an indication that her issues with food are far from over. Especially disturbing is her lengthy, almost worshipful description of her emaciated body during her anorexic phase. We hear about the bones in her chest, her sunken cheeks, her stick-like legs, the gap between her thighs. And is it my imagination, or is there a fiendish pleasure in the description? I was not surprised to read in the Amazon interview with Hornbacher that she is now relapsing. For anyone who is interested, the interview is available on this page, under "Amazon.com Articles". In the interview, Hornbacher's struggles with her eating disorder mindset are more apparent than ever. She even gets into an argument with the woman interviewing her, because the woman comments that she looks "fine". Hornbacher snaps back, "I'm totally underweight. I'm, like, 30 pounds underweight". After all these years, she still needs to let everyone know the exact number of pounds she is lacking. Marya Hornbacher is a perceptive, intelligent woman, who has a lot to say about what it is like to have an eating disorder. What she is lacking is the genuine desire to give up her anorexic world. It is for this reason that I find her book depressing and not extremely helpful. Most anorexics and bulimics will probably be motivated to read "Wasted". It is engrossing, and feeds the internal monster that is an eating disorder. We hear number after number; weight, height, calorie consumption, age, number of hospitalizaions... All the morbid details are there, filling our minds, satisfying our desire for the specifics of starvation. But in the end, we are left hungry. Hornbacher is now a married woman, still glorying in the feel of emaciation. She accepts the fact that she is going to die young. There is a feeling of inevitability and hopelessness that pervades "Wasted". Hornbacher is not cured, she does not have the answers, and she does not want to let go of her status as a severe anorexic. All she knows how to do is starve. Reading "Wasted" will leave your eating disorder feeling glutted, and your true self feeling empty. I think there is more hope than Hornbacher would have us believe. For those who would like to believe anorexia and bulimia can be overcome, I highly recommend "The Secret Language of Eating Disorders" by Peggy Claude-Pierre. "Wasted" is no more than one woman's tribute to her feats of starvation. There is so much more to life.
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Summary: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Review: As the mother of an anorexic\bulimic, I found this to be a brutally honest account of the life of an eating disordered young woman. While I watch my own daughter struggle on a daily basis with her own eating disorder, I now realize, that try as I may, I cannot stop her. I can love her, accept her and support her, but I cannot stop her. This book supplied me with some much needed insight into the problems entailed with anorexia\bulimia. I can only empathize with the women experiencing this disease, and can understand as a parent, the pain and heartache this monster can cause. I have read many books about anorexia and bulimia, sat in the eating disorder therapists office, the nutritionists office, and been with my daughter as we saw doctor after doctor, from pediatrician, to gyn, to a doctor who specializes in eating disorders. I know my daughter fights daily. She is now married and lives far away, but she still speaks of her anorexia\bulimia every time we are on the phone. I would have fixed it if I could, but only she has the power to do that. My prayers are with her and Marya and all the women suffering at the hands of this monster. This was definetly, the most realistic, honest and hardest (yet best) book I have ever read on this subject.
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Summary: From a survivor of ED's
Review: I have read this book a few times and had mixed reactions. I have been hospitalized twice for anorexia at the same hospital as Marya went to, and her experiences are brutally honest and true-to-life. Anyone wanting to understand anorexia or bulimia ought to read this book. Her quotes about how much she hated the bulimia episodes and how anorectics view bulimics are usually right on (although as both an anorectic and a bulimic, I have found quite a few exceptions to her "rule." I still suffer greatly from the two disorders, and it is refreshing to get someone's voice out there. One CAUTION, however: If you suffer from an eating disorder, be very careful in reading this book. I have needed to put it down quite a few times because it was too intense for me, and I have been triggered by it quite a few times. But if you want to know what is going on inside your loved one's head, remember that everyone is different so do not assume he/she feels like Marya does, but also bear in mind that Marya has been through a lot of the same stuff that many people with ED's go through.
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Summary: Close, but only half a cigar
Review: I approached this book with an experiential bias, being a nearly 30-year-old woman who suffered from anorexia and bulimia for about 15 years. Most of my physicians don't understand why I'm alive today, as I was close to death's door on many occasions, and have done lasting damage to my body. In short, my battle with EDs is not necessarily better or worse than Hornbacher's-- which might enable me to empathize with her, I thought. Not entirely so. While I recognized every one of Hornbacher's "tricks" and mind games, and had implemented all of them (and a few that she didn't mention!) myself, I still felt that her explanations about the etiology of her disease were at times too pat. Anorexia/bulimia isn't about having a svelte figure, and I don't believe it's about parental neglect either-- nor is it about being a "poor little rich (or upper-middle-class) girl." Sure, Hornbacher ascribed other reasons for her disorder-- a general psychic falling-out between the mind and the body-- but I felt that the old cliches hovered over the story as a whole, doing a disservice to women (like myself) who are not "typical" victims of the disease. I'm impressed that such a young writer could sustain an autobiography/memoir this effectively, but I had trouble with her authorial voice at times. Her tough defensiveness, interspersed with self-pity (Look, I'm unflinching! Oops, now I'm flinching!) seemed abrasive to me after a while. It's unfortunate to say that I didn't much like the author, but unfortunately, when dealing with a memoir, the author's personality does come under scrutiny, and affects the book in its entirety-- and in "Wasted," I think the effect is negative. Hornbacher is no patron saint of eating disorders, nor is she particularly representative of anything other than the usual bag of tricks, although she is honest and does occasionally demonstrate a nice turn of phrase.
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Summary: This books great, yet triggering
Review: I thought this book was great! It showed every aspect of an eating disorder. I was suffering with anorxia as I read this and it was some what triggering. I would not recommend it for those still suffering. If you are trying to learn about ED's this is the book to read.
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